The Japanese stock market is modestly lower on Thursday, giving up some of the gains in the previous two sessions, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 just below the 29,200 level, ignoring the mostly positive cues overnight from Wall Street, with campaigning season in full swing for the upcoming elections and parties clashing over key economic issues and handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is losing 76.44 points or 0.26 percent to 29,179.11, after hitting a low of 29,055.02 earlier. Japanese shares ended slightly higher on Wednesday.
Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is edging up 0.1 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is flat. Among automakers, Toyota is losing almost 1 percent and Honda is edging down 0.5 percent.
In the tech space, Advantest and Screen Holdings are losing almost 1 percent each, while Tokyo Electron is down more than 2 percent.
In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is edging down 0.2 percent, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mizuho Financial are flat.
The major exporters are mostly higher. Sony is edging down 0.3 percent, Panasonic is losing almost 1 percent and Canon is declining more than 1 percent, while Mitsubishi Electric is flat.
Among the other major losers, Isuzu Motors is losing 2.5 percent and Omron is down more than 2 percent.
Conversely, Pacific Metals is gaining almost 4 percent, while Tosoh, KDDI, Fujifilm, Mazda Motors and Sumitomo Chemical are adding more than 2 percent each.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 114 yen-range on Thursday.
On Wall Street, stocks moved mostly higher during trading on Wednesday, with the Dow and the S&P 500 reaching record intraday highs during the session. The tech-heavy Nasdaq bucked the uptrend, edging slightly lower.
The Dow climbed 152.93 points or 0.4 percent to 35,609.34 and the S&P 500 rose 16.56 points or 0.4 percent to 4,536.19. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq edged down 7.41 points or 0.1 percent to 15,121.68.
Meanwhile, the major European markets all moved to the upside on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index rose by 0.5 percent, U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index and the German DAX Index both crept up by 0.1 percent.
Crude oil prices climbed higher on Wednesday after data showed a drop in U.S. crude inventories last week, while increased demand also supported prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended up by $0.98 or 1.2 percent at $83.42 a barrel.
Market Analysis
Japanese Market Modestly Lower
2021-10-21 02:12:20
