Japanese Market Significantly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is trading significantly lower on Monday, giving up the gains in the previous two sessions. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 is falling well below the 38,000 mark, despite the broadly positive cues from Wall Street on Friday, with weakness in exporters, technology and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 423.69 or 1.10 percent at 37,940.58, after hitting a low of 37,825.31 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly higher on Friday.

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

In the tech space, Screen Holdings is losing almost 2 percent, Advantest is declining 2.5 percent and Tokyo Electron is down more than 1 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is edging up 0.5 percent, while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is losing almost 2 percent and Mizuho Financial is sliding more than 2 percent.

The major exporters are lower. Canon and Mitsubishi Electric are slipping almost 2 percent each, while Sony is losing almost 1 percent and Panasonic is down more than 1 percent.

Among other major losers, Isetan Mitsukoshi is slipping almost 5 percent, while Furukawa Electric, Yamaha Motor, Nissan Motor and Taiyo Yuden are losing more than 4 percent each. TDK, Chugai Pharmaceutical, Mazda Motor and Sumco are declining almost 4 percent each, while Kikkoman, Suzuki Motor, Mitsubishi Motors are down more than 3 percent each. Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Subaru are sliding almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, LY is gaining almost 5 percent and Nitori Holdings in adding almost 4 percent.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 143 yen-range on Monday.

On Wall Street, stocks showed a strong move back to the upside during trading on Friday following the pullback seen over the course of the previous session. The major averages all moved sharply higher, with the Dow and the S&P 500 reaching their best closing levels since reaching record highs in mid-July.

The major averages gave back ground after an early rally but showed another notable advance late in the session. The Dow jumped 462.30 points or 1.1 percent to 41,175.08, the Nasdaq surged 258.44 points or 1.5 percent to 17,877.79 and the S&P shot up 63.97 points or 1.2 percent to 5,634.61.

The major European markets all also moved higher on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index climbed by 0.5 percent, while the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index advanced by 0.7 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively.

Crude oil prices showed another strong move to the upside on Friday following the rebound in the previous session. West Texas Intermediate crude for October delivery surged $1.82 or 2.5 percent to $74.83 a barrel after jumping $1.08 or 1.5 percent to $73.01 a barrel during Thursday's session. But the price of crude oil fell by 0.9 for the week due to sell-off earlier in the week.