Japanese Market Significantly Lower

(RTTNews) - Extending the losses in the previous session, the Japanese market is significantly lower on Thursday, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 is falling well below the 38,100 level, with weakness in index heavyweights and technology stocks partially offset by gains in financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 307.66 points or 0.80 percent to 38,044.68, after hitting a low of 37,995.90 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly lower on Wednesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing almost 2 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is also down almost 2 percent. Among automakers, Toyota is edging down 0.3 percent and Honda is losing more than 1 percent.

In the tech space, Tokyo Electron is edging down 0.4 percent, Advantest is losing 3.5 percent and Screen Holdings is declining almost 2 percent.

In the banking sector, Mizuho Financial is gaining 1.5 percent, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are edging up 0.3 to 0.4 percent each.

Among the major exporters, Canon is adding almost 1 percent and Panasonic is edging up 0.3 percent, while Sony is losing 1.5 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is down almost 1 percent.

Among other major losers, Socionext is losing more than 3 percent, while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Disco are declining almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Fujikura is gaining more than 4 percent and Sumitomo Electric Industries is adding almost 4 percent, while Furukawa Electric, Sumitomo Pharma, Taiyo Yuden, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust and Kyowa Kirin are advancing more than 3 percent each. UBE is up almost 3 percent.

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

On Wall Street, stocks recovered in the latter part of the trading day on Wednesday after seeing weakness throughout much of the session. The major averages climbed well off their worst levels before eventually ending the session narrowly mixed.

The Dow ended the day up 139.53 points or 0.3 percent at 43,408.47, while the S&P 500 closed little changed, up just 0.13 points at 5,917.11. The tech-heavy Nasdaq closed down 21.32 points or 0.1 percent at 18,966.14 but staged a notable recovery attempt after tumbling by as much as 1.4 percent.

Meanwhile, the major European markets all moved to the downside on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index fell by 0.4 percent, the German DAX Index slipped by 0.3 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index edged down by 0.2 percent.

Crude oil prices drifted lower on Wednesday on weak demand concerns and data showing an increase in U.S. crude inventories last week. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for December slipped $0.52 or 0.75 percent at $68.87 a barrel.