Japanese Market Sharply Lower; Down 500 Points

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is sharply lower on Friday, snapping the four-session winning streak, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 falling below the 31,800 level, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight, with losses across most sectors, led by technology stocks, as traders digested data showing the core inflation rate in Japan's capital city of Tokyo remained above the Bank of Japan's 2% target for the 15th consecutive month.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is losing 531.99 points or 1.65 percent to 31,755.22, after hitting a low of 31,885.53 earlier. Japanese stocks closed significantly higher on Thursday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing more than 3 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is down almost 2 percent. Among automakers, Honda and Toyota are edging down 0.2 to 0.3 percent each. In the tech space, Advantest is plunging more than 9 percent, Tokyo Electron is declining almost 5 percent and Screen Holdings is losing more than 3 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial are edging down 0.3 to 0.4 percent each, while Mizuho Financial is gaining almost 1 percent.

Among major exporters, Sony and Mitsubishi Electric are losing more than 1 percent each, while Panasonic is down 1.5 percent. Canon is edging up 0.3 percent. Among other major losers, there are no other major losers.

Conversely, there are no other major gainers also.

In economic news, overall consumer prices in the Tokyo region of Japan were up 2.9 percent on year in August, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said on Friday. That was below expectations for an increase of 3.0 percent and was down from 3.2 percent in July. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile costs of food, were up 2.8 percent on year. This was shy of forecasts for an increase of 2.9 percent and was down from 3.0 percent in the previous month.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 146 yen-range on Friday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved sharply lower over the course of the trading session on Thursday after failing to sustain an initial move to the upside. The major averages all showed significant moves to the downside, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq leading the pullback.

The major averages finished the day just off their lows of the session. The Nasdaq plunged 257.06 points or 1.9 percent to 13,463.97, the S&P 500 tumbled 59.70 points or 1.4 percent to 4,376.31 and the Dow slid 373.56 points or 1.1 percent to 34,099.42.

Meanwhile, the major European markets turned in a mixed performance on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index edged up 0.2 percent, the French CAC 40 Index fell 0.4 percent and the German DAX Index slid by 0.7 percent.

Crude oil futures settled higher Thursday on expectations that Saudi Arabia will extend its production cut into the next month. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for October ended higher by $0.16 or 0.2 percent at $79.05 a barrel.