Japanese Market Significantly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is significantly lower on Monday, snapping the seven-session winning streak, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 27,700 level, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street on Friday, amid the steady surge in the fresh wave of COVID-19 infections with the BA.5 omicron variant.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 221.36 or 0.79 percent at 27,693.30, after hitting a low of 27,663.16 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly higher on Friday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is flat and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging down 0.2 percent. Among automakers, Honda is edging down 0.2 percent and Toyota is losing more than 1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest and Screen Holdings are edging down 0.4 to 0.5 percent each, while Tokyo Electron is losing almost 1 percent. In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are edging up 0.3 percent each, while Mizuho Financial is flat.

The major exporters are mostly higher, with Sony losing almost 3 percent and Canon edging down 0.5 percent, while Panasonic and Mitsubishi Electric are down almost 1 percent each. Among the other major gainers, Eisai is losing more than 5 percent, while Yaskawa Electric, Shin-Etsu Chemical and Nippon Sheet Glass are down almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Meiji Holdings is losing almost 3 percent.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 136 yen-range on Monday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved to the downside over the course of the trading day on Friday after turning in a mixed performance early in the session. The tech-heavy Nasdaq led the way lower and was eventually joined in negative territory by the Dow.

The major averages all closed in the red, although the Nasdaq underperformed its counterparts by a wide margin. While the Nasdaq tumbled by 225.50 points or 1.9 percent to 11,834.11, the S&P 500 slumped 37.32 points or 0.9 percent to 3,961.63 and the Dow fell by 137.61 points or 0.4 percent at 31,899.29.

Meanwhile, the major European markets all moved modestly higher on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index crept up by 0.3 percent, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index and the German DAX Index both inched up by 0.1 percent.

Crude oil futures settled sharply lower on Friday as prices fell on concerns about the outlook for energy demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for September ended lower by $1.65 or 1.7 percent at $94.70 a barrel.