Japanese Market Sharply Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is sharply lower on Wednesday, extending the losses in the previous session, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 27,100 level, following the broadly negative cues from global markets overnight, as traders remain concerned about the prospect that the US Fed will continue hiking rates to tame stubborn inflation.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 408.71 or 1.49 percent at 27,064.39, after hitting a low of 27,046.08 earlier. Japanese stocks ended modestly lower on Tuesday.

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

In the tech space, Screen Holdings and Advantest are losing almost 1 percent each, while Tokyo Electron is down almost 2 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are losing almost 1 percent each, while Mizuho Financial is edging down 0.4 percent.

Among the major exporters, Canon and Panasonic are losing more than 1 percent each, while Sony is declining more than 2 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is down more than 1 percent.

Among the other major losers, T&D Holdings is losing almost 6 percent, while Nissan Motor, Trend Micro, Fujikura, CyberAgent, Toray Industries, GS Yuasa, Ricoh, Nippon Paper Industries and JTEKT are all declining more than 3 percent each. Furukawa Electric, NEXON, Sharp, Recruit Holdings and Kubota are down almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, there are no major gainers.

In economic news, producer prices in Japan were up 1.6 percent on year in January, the Bank of Japan said on Wednesday, after rising 1.5 percent in December. On a monthly basis, producer prices fell 0.3 percent after rising 0.1 percent in the previous month.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 135 yen-range on Wednesday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved sharply lower over the course of the trading session on Tuesday following the mixed performance seen last Friday. With the steep drop on the day, the Dow and the S&P 500 ended the session at their lowest closing levels in a month.

The major averages saw further downside going into the close, ending the session at their worst levels of the day. The Dow tumbled 697.10 points or 2.1 percent to 33,129.59, the Nasdaq plunged 294.97 points or 2.5 percent to 11,492.30 and the S&P 500 dove 81.75 points or 2 percent to 3,997.34.

The major European markets also all moved to the downside on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index fell by 0.4 percent, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index and the German DAX Index both slid by 0.5 percent.

Crude oil prices were volatile on Tuesday as traders weighed the impact of higher U.S. interest rates against optimism about increased demand from China. West Texas Intermediate for March delivery dipped $0.16 or 0.2 percent to $76.16 a barrel, while crude for April delivery eased $0.19 or 0.3 percent to $76.29 a barrel.