Japanese Market Slightly Lower

(RTTNews) - Adding to the losses in the previous two sessions, the Japanese stock market is slightly lower in choppy trading on Friday, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark Nikkei 225 is falling below the 40,100 level, with a mixed performance across most sectors as traders reacted to latest domestic inflation data.

The data revealed that Japan's headline inflation rate remained unchanged at 2.8 percent in June, while the core inflation rate rose to 2.6 percent from 2.5 percent last year.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is losing 36.71 points or 0.09 percent to 40,089.64, after hitting a low of 39,824.58 earlier. Japanese stocks closed sharply lower on Thursday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing more than 1 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging down 0.4 percent. Among automakers, Honda is flat and Toyota is edging down 0.1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is gaining 2.5 percent, Tokyo Electron is adding more than 2 percent and Screen Holdings is edging up 0.2 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is edging down 0.2 percent and Mizuho Financial is losing almost 1 percent, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is edging up 0.4 percent.

Among major exporters, Mitsubishi Electric, Canon and Sony are edging down 0.4 to 0.5 percent each, while Panasonic is losing almost 1 percent.

Among other major losers, Disco is losing almost 5 percent, Astellas Pharma is declining almost 4 percent and Sumitomo Metal Mining is down more than 3 percent.

Conversely, Hoya is gaining more than 3 percent, while Fujikura and Renesas Electronics are adding almost 3 percent each.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the mid-157 yen-range on Friday.

On Wall Street, stocks showed a lack of direction in early trading on Thursday before coming under considerable selling pressure over the course of the session. With the downward move, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 added to the steep losses posted in the previous session.

The major averages all finished the day firmly in negative territory. The Dow tumbled 533.06 points or 1.3 percent to 40,665.02, the Nasdaq fell 125.70 points or 0.7 percent to 17,871.22 and the S&P 500 slid 43.68 points or 0.8 percent to 5,544.59.

Meanwhile, the major European markets also ended the day mixed. While the German DAX Index fell by 0.5 percent, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index and the French CAC 40 Index both rose by 0.2 percent.

Crude oil prices eased slightly on Thursday concerns about the outlook for oil demand from China, while the dollar's recovery weighed as well on prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended down $0.03 at $82.82 a barrel.