Japanese Market Sharply Lower; Down 2%

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is trading sharply lower on Monday, extending the losses in the previous session, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street on Friday, with the Nikkei 225 tumbling more than 2 percent to well below the 39,950 level, with weakness across all sectors led by exporters, automakers and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 886.52 points or 2.17 percent at 39,913.08, after hitting a low of 39,850.52 earlier. Japanese shares ended notably lower on Friday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is edging down 0.2 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is declining 3.5 percent. Among automakers, Honda is down 2.5 percent and Toyota is losing more than 2 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is declining more than 2 percent, Tokyo Electron is losing almost 2 percent and Screen Holdings is edging down 0.4 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are sliding almost 5 percent, while Mizuho Financial is declining almost 4 percent.

The major exporters are mostly lower. Panasonic, Sony and Canon are declining almost 3 percent each, while Mitsubishi Electric is losing more than 1 percent. Among the other major losers, Yamaha is tumbling more than 8 percent and Credit Saison is slipping almost 6 percent, while Recruit Holdings and KDDI are losing more than 5 percent each. TDK, Casio Computer and Yaskawa Electric are declining almost 5percent each, while Concordia Financial, Konica Minolta, Chiba Bank and Nitto Denko are down more than 4 percent each.

Conversely, Hoya is gaining more than 3 percent.

In economic news, the monetary base in Japan was down 3.9 percent on year in July, the Bank of Japan said on Monday - coming in at 643.896 trillion yen. That follows the downwardly revised 3.5 percent annual decline in June (originally -3.3 percent). The adjusted monetary base was down 2.8 percent on year at 643.997 trillion yen.

Banknotes in circulation were down 2.4 percent on year, while coins in circulation fell 1.4 percent. Current account balances shrank 4.3 percent on year, including a 2.2 percent decline in reserve balances.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 147 yen-range on Monday.

On Wall Street, stocks showed a more substantial move to the downside during trading on Friday following the downturn seen over the course of Thursday's session. The major averages all moved sharply lower, with the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 pulling back well off Thursday's record intraday highs.

The major averages ended the day off their lows of the session but still firmly negative. The Nasdaq plunged 472.32 points or 2.2 percent to 47,231.61, the S&P 500 tumbled 101.38 points or 1.6 percent to 6,238.01 and the Dow slumped 542.40 points or 1.2 percent to 43,588.58.

The major European markets also showed significant moves to the downside on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index plummeted by 2.9 percent, the German DAX Index plunged by 2.7 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index slid by 0.7 percent.

Crude oil prices fell Friday on demand concerns for potentially reduced consumption amid new tariffs from the U.S. government. West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery was down $1.92 or 2.77 percent at $67.34 per barrel.