Japanese Market Significantly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is significantly lower on Wednesday, giving up some of the gains in the previous two sessions, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 26,300 level, following the mostly negative cues from Wall Street overnight, dragged by technology stocks, which mirrored their peers on the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 156.10 points or 0.59 percent at 26,291.77, after hitting a low of 26,199.67 earlier. Japanese stocks closed modestly higher on Tuesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing almost 2 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is down more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda and Toyota are edging down 0.4 to 0.5 percent.

In the tech space, Tokyo Electron is losing almost 2 percent, Screen Holdings is declining more than 1 percent and Advantest is down 1.5 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Mizuho Financial are edging up 0.1 to 0.5 percent each.

Among the major exporters, Sony and Canon are edging down 0.3 to 0.4 percent each, while Panasonic and Mitsubishi Electric are down almost 1 percent each.

Among the other major losers, J. Front Retailing is losing almost 3 percent.

Conversely, there are no major gainers.

In economic news, Industrial production in Japan was down a seasonally adjusted 1.0 percent on month in November, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said on Wednesday. That beat expectations for a decline of 0.3 percent following the 3.2 percent drop in October.

On a yearly basis, industrial production sank 1.3 percent - missing expectations for a gain of 1.0 percent following the 3.0 percent increase in the previous month. Upon the release of the data, the METI downgraded its assessment of industrial production, saying that it has weakened.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 133 yen-range on Wednesday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved mostly lower during trading on Tuesday with trading resuming following the long Christmas weekend. The tech-heavy Nasdaq showed a particularly steep drop, tumbling to its lowest closing level in well over a month.

The Nasdaq plunged 144.64 points or 1.4 percent to 10,353.23 and the S&P 500 fell 15.57 points or 0.4 percent to 3,829.25. Meanwhile, the narrower Dow inched up 37.63 points or 0.1 percent to 33,241.56.

Meanwhile, the major European markets moved to the upside on the day. While the U.K. markets remained closed, the German DAX Index rose 0.4 percent and the French CAC 40 Index climbed 0.7 percent.

Crude oil prices pared gains and settled roughly flat on Tuesday after refineries in the Gulf Coast restarted after a temporary closure. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for February settled flat at $79.53 a barrel.