Japanese Market Sharply Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is sharply lower on Friday, giving up the gains in the previous session, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 falling below the 27,600 level, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight, dragged by weakness in technology stocks. Traders are also concerned about the continued depreciation of the yen, high inflation, rising interest rates and slowing global growth.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is losing 329.14 points or 1.18 percent to 27,546.77, after hitting a low of 27,525.68 earlier. Japanese stocks closed modestly higher on Thursday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is edging up 0.2 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is losing almost 2 percent. Among automakers, Honda is declining almost 2 percent and Toyota is down almost 1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is losing almost 2 percent, while Tokyo Electron and Screen Holdings are declining more than 3 percent each.

In the banking sector, Mizuho Financial is gaining almost 1 percent, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are edging up 0.3 to 0.5 percent each.

Among major exporters, Canon is losing almost 1 percent, while Panasonic and Sony are edging down 0.2 to 0.4 percent each. Mitsubishi Electric is gaining almost 1 percent.

Among the other major losers, IHI Corp. is losing 5.5 percent, while Trend Micro and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha are down almost 5 percent each. Nippon Express is slipping more than 4 percent, while Pacific Metals, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Yokogawa Electric are declining more than 3 percent each. NEXON, Toho Zinc, JGC Holdings, Inpex and Alps Alpine are sliding almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Fukuoka Financial is gaining more than 3 percent.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 143 yen-range on Friday.

On Wall Street, stocks fluctuated over the course of the session on Thursday before coming under considerable pressure in the latter part of the session. The Dow and the S&P 500 more than offset Wednesday's gains, falling to their lowest closing levels in two months.

The major averages climbed off their worst lows of the session going into the close but remained firmly negative. The Dow slid 173.27 points or 0.6 percent to 30,961.82, the Nasdaq tumbled 167.32 points or 1.4 percent to 11,552.36 and the S&P 500 slumped 44.66 points or 1.1 percent to 3,901.36.

The major European markets also moved mostly lower on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index bucked the downtrend and inched up by 0.1 percent, the German DAX Index fell by 0.6 percent and the French CAC 40 Index slumped by 1.0 percent.

Crude oil futures fell sharply on Thursday amid concerns about outlook for energy demand, and on reports about a tentative deal between rail road union and its workers to avert a potentially disastrous rail strike in the U.S. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for October ended lower by $3.38 or about 3.8% at $85.10 a barrel, the lowest settlement since September 8.