Japan Shares May Turn Lower Again On Wednesday

(RTTNews) - The Japan stock market on Tuesday wrote a finish to the two-day slide in which it had tumbled almost 780 points or 1.8 percent. The Nikkei 225 now sits just shy of the 40,550-point plateau although it may head south again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is weak on renewed tariff concerns. The European markets were mixed and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The Nikkei finished modestly higher on Tuesday following gains from the financial hares, technology stocks and automobile producers.

For the day, the index jumped 258.84 points or 0.64 percent to finish at 40,549.54 after trading between 40,421.88 and 40,649.38.

Among the actives, Nissan Motor rose 0.28 percent, while Mazda Motor accelerated 2.65 percent, Toyota Motor perked 0.15 percent, Honda Motor dipped 0.10 percent, Softbank Group rallied 2.68 percent, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial collected 0.61 percent, Mizuho Financial spiked 2.26 percent, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial improved 0.78 percent, Mitsubishi Electric strengthened 1.31 percent, Sony Group added 0.30 percent, Panasonic Holdings jumped 1.99 percent and Hitachi sank 0.46 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened slightly higher on Tuesday but quickly turned lower and spent the balance of the day in the red, closing near session lows.

The Dow slipped 61.90 points or 0.14 percent to finish at 44,111.74, while the NASDAQ sank 137.03 points or 0.65 percent to end at 20,916.55 and the S&P 500 dropped 30.75 points or 0.49 percent to close at 6,299.19.

The weakness that emerged on Wall Street reflected ongoing trade concerns after President Donald Trump said he will be announcing new tariffs on semiconductors and chips as soon as next week. Trump said planned tariffs on pharmaceuticals imported into the U.S. could reach as high as 250 percent.

Negative sentiment was also have been generated by a report from the Institute for Supply Management that unexpectedly showed a modest slowdown in the pace of growth by U.S. service sector activity in the month of July.

Early in the session, stocks benefitted from a positive reaction to some of the latest earnings news, including upbeat quarterly results from software company Palantir (PLTR).

Crude oil prices fell on Tuesday amid US pressure on India to stop buying oil from Russia, as well as OPEC's recent decision to boost production. West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery slumped $1.05 or 1.58 percent to $65.24 per barrel.