Japanese Market Significantly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese market is trading significantly lower on Thursday, snapping the seven-session winning streak, despite the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 is falling below the 42,900 level, with weakness in index heavyweights, exporters and technology stocks partially offset by gains in financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 396.61 points or 0.92 percent to 42,878.06, after hitting a low of 42,837.37 earlier. Japanese shares ended sharply higher on Wednesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining more than 3 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is losing more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Toyota is losing 1.5 percent and Honda is edging down 0.2 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is declining almost 3 percent, Tokyo Electron is losing more than 2 percent and Screen Holdings is down almost 1 percent.

In the banking sector, Mizuho Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are edging up 0.4 to 0.5 percent each, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is adding more than 1 percent.

Among the major exporters, Sony and Mitsubishi Electric are losing more than 1 percent each, while Canon is declining almost 2 percent and Panasonic is slipping more than 2 percent.

Among other major losers, Socionext and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are losing more than 5 percent each, while Kawasaki Heavy Industries is slipping more than 4 percent. Furukawa Electric and Recruit Holdings are declining almost 4 percent each, while Shimizu and Ryohin Keikaku are down more than 3 percent each. Aeon, Hitachi, Kajima and Taisei are sliding almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Citizen Watch and NEXON are gaining more than 4 percent each, while Nitori Holdings is adding almost 3 percent.

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

On Wall Street, stocks gave back ground over the course of the trading day on Wednesday but managed to close mostly higher after initially extending the rally seen during Tuesday's session. Despite pulling back well off their highs of the session, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 still reached new record closing highs.

The Nasdaq inched up 31.24 points or 0.1 percent to 21,713.14 and the S&P 500 rose 20.82 points or 0.3 percent to 6,466.58, while the narrower Dow posted a more significant gain, jumping 463.66 points or 1.0 percent to 44,922.27.

The major European markets also moved to the upside on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index edged up by 0.2 percent, the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index both advanced by 0.7 percent.

Crude oil prices fell on Wednesday after the International Energy Agency projected oversupply in the market this year due to surging supply from oil producers. West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery was down $0.55 or 0.87 percent at $62.62 per barrel.