Japanese Market Significantly Lower

(RTTNews) - Extending the strong losses in the previous session, the Japanese stock market is significantly lower on Tuesday, with the Nikkei 225 retracting from recent all-time highs to fall below the 38,400 level, following the mixed cues from global markets overnight, with losses in index heavyweights, exporters and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 443.67 points or 1.14 percent at 38,376.82, after hitting a low of 38,271.38 earlier. Japanese shares ended sharply lower on Monday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing almost 2 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is flat. Among automakers, Honda is losing more than 1 percent and Toyota is declining almost 3 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is edging down 0.3 percent and Tokyo Electron is losing almost 3 percent, while Screen Holdings is edging up 0.2 percent.

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

The major exporters are weak. Panasonic is losing almost 2 percent, Canon is edging down 0.5 percent, Sony is down almost 1 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is declining almost 5 percent.

Among the other major losers, Renesas Electronics and Mitsui & Co. are losing almost 5 percent each, while MS&AD Insurance, Marubeni and Tokyo Gas are declining more than 4 percent each. Rakuten Group, Keisei Electric Railway, Omron, Itochu, T&D Holdings and Sumitomo are down almost 4 percent each, while Osaka Gas and Mitsubishi Corp. are slipping more than 3 percent each.

Conversely, there are no other major gainers.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 146 yen-range on Tuesday.

On Wall Street, stocks saw further downside in early trading on Monday after coming under pressure over the course of the previous session. The major averages regained ground over the course of the trading day, however, with the Dow closing modestly higher.

While the Dow inched up 46.97 points or 0.1 percent to 38,769.66 after falling nearly 240 points in early trading, the S&P 500 edged down 5.75 points or 0.1 percent to 5,117.94 and the Nasdaq fell 65.84 points or 0.4 percent to 16,019.27.

The major European markets also finished the day mixed. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index inched up by 0.1 percent, the French CAC 40 Index edged down by 0.1 percent and the German DAX Index fell by 0.4 percent.

Crude oil prices settled lower on Monday amid concerns about the outlook for demand from China and on caution ahead key U.S. consumer price inflation data. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April ended down $0.08 or 0.1 percent at $77.93 a barrel, settling lower for the third consecutive session.