Japanese stock market is sharply lower on Monday, extending the losses of the previous three sessions, with the Nikkei 225 losing more than 500 points to slip below the 27,500 level, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street on Friday. Traders also continue to be spooked amid the surge in the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus variants as even some Tokyo Olympics participants have tested positive.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 507.72 points or 1.81 percent at the day’s low of 27,495.36. Japanese shares ended significantly lower on Friday.
Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing more than 2 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is down more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is losing more than 2 percent and Toyota is down more than 1 percent.
The major exporters are higher, with Canon and Panasonic losing almost 2 percent each, while Mitsubishi Electric and Sony are down more than 1 percent each.
In the tech space, Advantest is losing more than 1 percent, Tokyo Electron is down almost 2 percent and Screen Holdings is declining more than 3 percent. In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is losing more than 1 percent, while Mizuho Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is down almost 2 percent each.
Among the other major losers, Taiyo Yuden is down almost 5 percent, while Ebara, Fujikura and Japan Steel Works are losing more than 4 percent each. Konica Minolta, Showa Denko K.K., Hitachi Zosen, Nippon Sheet Glass, NTN, Nikon, Sumco, JTEKT and Sharp are all lower by almost 4 percent each. Okuma and Kobe Steel are declining more than 3 percent each.
Conversely, Chugai Pharmaceutical is gaining more than 2 percent.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 109 yen-range on Monday.
On Wall Street, stocks moved mostly lower over the course of the trading session on Friday after failing to sustain an early move to the upside. The major averages pulled back well off their initial highs and slid firmly into negative territory.
The major averages ended the session just off their worst levels of the day. The Dow slumped 299.17 points or 0.9 percent to 34,687.85, the Nasdaq slid 115.90 points or 0.8 percent to 14,427.24 and the S&P 500 fell 32.87 points or 0.8 percent to 4,327.16.
The major European markets all also moved to the downside on the day. While the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index edged down by 0.1 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index slid by 0.5 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.
Crude oil futures settled slightly higher Friday, moving up after two days of sharp losses but ending with a sharp weekly loss. Worries about outlook for energy demand due to the surge in the delta variant of the coronavirus weighed on the commodity.
Also, OPEC+ agreed on a deal to increase crude output over the weekend, putting further pressure on prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended up by $0.16 or 0.2 percent on Friday at $71.81 a barrel; oil futures shed nearly 4 percent in the week.
Market Analysis
Japanese Market Sharply Lower
2021-07-19 02:26:10
