Japanese Market Sharply Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is trading sharply lower on Monday, reversing the gains in the previous session, following the mixed cues from Wall Street on Friday, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 53,000 mark, with weakness across most sectors led by index heavyweights, exporters and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 887.32 points or 1.65 percent at 52,959.55, after hitting a low of 52,794.21 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly higher on Friday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing almost 4 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is down almost 2 percent. Among automakers, Honda is losing almost 4 percent and Toyota is down more than 3 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest and Tokyo Electron are edging up 0.2 percent each, while Screen Holdings is losing almost 2 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mizuho Financial are losing more than 2 percent each, while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is declining more than 3 percent.

The major exporters are mostly lower. Mitsubishi Electric and Sony are losing more than 2 percent each, while Canon is declining almost 3 percent and Panasonic is tumbling almost 5 percent.

Among the other major losers, Fujitsu is tumbling almost 7 percent and Socionext is slipping almost 5 percent, while Shin-Etsu Chemical, Suzuki Motor, Murata Manufacturing and NEXON are declining more than 4 percent each. Taiyo Yuden, Sumco, TDK and Ibiden are losing almost 4 percent each. Renesas Electronics and Yokohama Rubber are down more than 3 percent each.

Conversely, Mercari is surging more than 8 percent and Furukawa Electric is advancing almost 6 percent.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 154 yen-range on Monday.

On Wall Street, stock indexes turned in a mixed performance during trading on Friday after moving sharply higher over the two previous sessions. While the Dow gave back ground, the tech-heavy Nasdaq saw further upside, closing higher for the third straight day.

The major averages finished the choppy trading day on opposite sides of the unchanged line. The Dow slid 285.30 points or 0.6 percent to 49,098.71, but the S&P 500 inched up 2.26 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 6,915.61 and the Nasdaq rose 65.22 points or 0.3 percent to 23,501.24.

The major European markets also ended the day narrowly mixed. While the German DAX Index crept up by 0.2 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index both edged down by 0.1 percent.

Crude oil prices soared on Friday as fresh war threats in the Middle East raised supply disruption concerns. West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery was up $1.75 or 2.95 percent at $61.11 per barrel.