Steady Start Eyed For Japan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Japan stock market on Monday ended the two-day winning streak in which it had advanced almost 1,750 points or 2.6 precent. The Nikkei 225 now sits just beneath the 67,250-point plateau and it may find traction on Tuesday. The global forecast for the Asian markets is weak thanks to renewed hostilities in the Middle East and weakness among the technology companies. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The Nikkei finished sharply lower on Monday with damage across the board, particularly among the financial shares, technology stocks and automobile producers. For the day, the index tumbled 1,315.00 points or 1.92 percent to finish at 67,242.73 after trading between 66,653.11 and 69,078.21. The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened mixed but quickly turned lower and remained under water for the balance of the session, ending near daily lows.

The Dow dropped 138.37 points or 0.26 percent to finish at 52,498.64, while the NASDAQ plummeted 408.43 points or 1.55 percent to close at 25,873.18 and the S&P 500 sank 59.92 points or 0.79 percent to end at 7,515.47.

The weakness on Wall Street followed a sharp increase by the price of crude oil amid the continued exchange of attacks between the U.S. and Iran.

U.S. Central Command said it completed a new wave of offensive strikes against Iran on Sunday, hitting dozens of targets at multiple locations with precision munitions.

Tehran responded by attacking Gulf Arab states, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman, further straining the fragile ceasefire between the two countries.

As a result, crude oil prices skyrocketed on Monday amid intense attacks between the U.S. and Iran over the weekend, renewing Middle East tensions. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery was up $6.87 or 9.62 percent at $78.28 per barrel. Closer to home, Japan will see revised May figures for industrial production later today; the previous reading suggested an increase of 0.5 percent on month, while capacity utilization sank 0.8 percent.