Japanese Market Sharply Lower

(RTTNews) - Extending the losses in the previous three sessions, the Japanese stock market is sharply lower on Tuesday, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 31,400 level, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight, with weakness across global markets amid a strong US dollar and a surge in treasury yields.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 392.26 points or 1.24 percent at 31,367.62, after hitting a low of 31,260.99 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly lower on Monday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing almost 1 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is down 1.5 percent. Among automakers, Honda is losing 1.5 percent and Toyota is declining more than 2 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is edging down 0.1 percent, Screen Holdings is losing more than 2 percent and Tokyo Electron is losing almost 1 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are losing almost 1 percent each, while Mizuho Financial are edging down 0.5 percent.

The major exporters are mostly lower. Canon is losing almost 2 percent, Panasonic is down almost 1 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is declining almost 3 percent, while Sony is edging up 0.3 percent.

Among the other major losers, Inpex is plunging more than 6 percent and Nippon Sheet Glass is slipping more than 5 percent, while JGC Holdings, ENEOS Holdings and Mazda Motor are losing almost 5 percent each. Idemitsu Kosan, Hino Motors, Tokyo Electric Power, Yamaha Motor, Kobe Steel, Aozora Bank and Mitsubishi Motors are all slipping more than 4 percent each, while Mitsui E&S, Subaru and Pacific Metals are declining almost 4 percent each.

Conversely, there are no other major gainers.

In economic news, the monetary base in Japan jumped 5.6 percent on year in September, the Bank of Japan said on Tuesday - coming in at 669.860 trillion yen. That shattered expectations for an increase of 1.6 percent following the upwardly revised 1.2 percent increase in August (originally 1.1 percent). The adjusted monetary base surged 31.5 percent to 676.105 trillion yen. For the third quarter of 2023, the monetary base climbed 1.8 percent on year.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 149 yen-range on Tuesday.

On Wall Street, stocks turned in another mixed performance during trading on Monday after ending last Friday's trading on opposite sides of the unchanged line. While the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended the day firmly in positive territory, the Dow dipped to its lowest closing level in four months.

The Nasdaq climbed 88.45 points or 0.7 percent to 13,307.77 and the S&P 500 crept up 0.34 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 4,288.39, but the Dow slipped 74.15 points or 0.2 percent to 33,433.35.

Meanwhile, the major European markets moved to the downside on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index tumbled by 1.3 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index both slumped by 0.9 percent.

Crude oil prices fell sharply on Monday, hurt by a stronger dollar and concerns about prospects of rising supplies in the market. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for November sank $1.97 or 2.2 percent at $88.82 a barrel.