Japanese Market Significantly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is significantly lower on Monday, giving up the gains in the previous session, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 27,400 level, following the mixed cues from Wall Street on Friday, dragged by technology stocks which mirrored their peers on the tech-heavy Nasdaq. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 349.32 or 1.26 percent at 27,321.66, after hitting a low of 27,266.94 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly higher on Friday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing 1.5 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is down more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is gaining 3.5 percent, while Toyota is losing more than 1 percent.

In the tech space, Screen Holdings and Advantest are losing more than 2 percent each, while Tokyo Electron is slipping more than 4 percent. In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are gaining 1.5 percent each, while Mizuho Financial is adding more than 1 percent.

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

Among the other major gainers, Shiseido is losing more than 5 percent, Nissan Chemical is down almost 5 percent and Olympus is declining more than 4 percent, while Dowa Holdings, Sumitomo Osaka Cement and Mitsubishi Materials are down almost 4 percent each. Taiheiyo Cement is slipping more than 3 percent, while Hoya, Sumitomo Metal Mining and Sumco are down almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Inpex is gaining almost 5 percent, while Daiwa House Industry and Resona Holdings are adding more than 3 percent each. JGC Holdings is up almost 3 precent.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 131 yen-range on Monday.

On Wall Street, stocks turned in a mixed performance during trading on Friday following the significant downturn seen over the course of Thursday's session. While the tech-heavy Nasdaq saw further downside, the Dow and the S&P 500 regained some ground.

The Nasdaq closed lower by 71.46 points or 0.6 percent to 11,718.12, while the Dow rose 169.39 points or 0.6 percent to 33,869.27. The S&P 500 spent most of the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before closing up 8.96 points or 0.2 percent to 4,090.46.

Meanwhile, the major European markets all moved to the downside on the day. While the German DAX Index tumbled 1.4 percent, the French CAC 40 Index slumped by 0.8 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index slid by 0.4 percent.

Crude oil futures settled sharply higher Friday on continued optimism about higher fuel demand from China, and on Russia's move to reduce oil output next month. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March ended higher by $1.66 or 2.1 percent at $79.72 a barrel. WTI crude futures gained 9 percent in the week.