Japanese Market Significantly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is significantly lower in post-holiday trading on Tuesday, reversing the gains in the previous session, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 38,400 level, with weakness across most sectors led by index heavyweights and technology stocks. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 393.54 points or 1.01 percent at 38,383.40, after hitting a low of 38,131.79 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly higher on Friday ahead of the holiday on Monday.

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

In the tech space, Advantest is declining 3.5 percent, while Screen Holdings and Tokyo Electron are edging down 0.2 to 0.4 percent each.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Mizuho Financial are edging down 0.5 percent each, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is down 1.5 percent.

The major exporters are mixed. Panasonic and Sony are edging down 0.1 to 0.4 percent each, while Mitsubishi Electric is edging up 0.5 percent and Canon is advancing more than 1 percent.

Among the other major losers, Nissan Motor is tumbling almost 8 percent and Hitachi is plunging more than 6 percent and Furukawa Electric is sliding almost 6 percent, while Recruit Holdings and Fujikura are declining more than 5 percent each. NTT Data, Japan Steel Works, Renesas Electronics and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are slipping almost 4 percent each, while Sumitomo Electric Industries, ENEOS Holdings and Kubota are down more than 3 percent each.

Conversely, Mitsubishi is soaring more than 8 percent, Marubeni is surging more than 7 percent, Itochu is advancing more than 6 percent, Sumitomo is gaining almost 6 percent and Mitsui & Co. is adding more than 4 percent, while Ricoh, Shionogi & Co. and Olympus are up more than 3 percent each.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 150 yen-range on Tuesday.

On Wall Street, stocks saw considerable volatility over the course of the trading day on Monday following the significant pullback seen during last Thursday and Friday's session. The major averages showed wild swings back and forth across the unchanged line as the day progressed.

The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 eventually ended the day firmly in negative territory, but the narrower Dow posted a modest gain. While the Dow inched up 33.19 points or 0.1 percent to 43,461.21, the S&P 500 fell 29.88 points or 0.5 percent to 5,983.25 and the Nasdaq tumbled 237.08 points or 1.2 percent to 19,286.92.

The major European markets also turned in a mixed performance on the day. While the German DAX Index climbed by 0.6 percent, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index closed just below the unchanged line and the French CAC 40 Index fell by 0.8 percent.

Crude oil prices climbed higher on Monday as fresh sanctions by the United States on Iran raised the possibility of a drop in global supplies. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April settled higher by $0.30 at $70.70 a barrel.