Japanese Market Sharply Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is sharply lower on Thursday, extending the losses in the previous session, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 26,000 mark, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight, with weakness across most sectors, led by exporters, technology and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 353.30 points or 1.34 percent to 25,987.20, after hitting a low of 25,965.41 earlier. Japanese stocks closed modestly lower on Wednesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing almost 2 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is also down almost 2 percent. Among automakers, Toyota and Honda are edging down 0.4 to 0.5 percent each.

In the tech space, Screen Holdings, Advantest and Tokyo Electron are losing almost 1 percent each.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Mizuho Financial are losing almost 1 percent each, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is down more than 1 percent.

Among the major exporters, Mitsubishi Electric, Panasonic and Sony are losing almost 1 percent each, while Canon is declining 2.5 percent.

Among the other major losers, IHI Corp. is losing more than 3 percent, while Aozora Bank, Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Fukuoka Financial Group are down almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Nexon is gaining almost 5 percent.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 133 yen-range on Thursday.

On Wall Street, stocks showed a lack of direction in early trading on Wednesday but moved sharply lower over the course of the session. With the steep drop on the day, the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended the session at its lowest closing level in over two years.

The major averages finished the session just off their worst levels of the day. While the Nasdaq plunged 139.94 points or 1.4 percent to 10,213.29, the S&P 500 dove 46.03 points or 1.2 percent to 3,783.22 and the Dow tumbled 365.85 points or 1.1 percent to 32,875.71.

Meanwhile, the major European markets turned in a mixed performance on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index rose by 0.3 percent, the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index slid by 0.5 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.

Crude oil prices dropped Wednesday on concerns about the outlook for energy demand amid fears of a global recession and rising COVID-19 cases in China. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for February ended down $0.57 or 0.7 percent at $78.86 a barrel.