Japan Stock Market May Spin Its Wheels On Tuesday

(RTTNews) - Ahead of Monday's holiday for Coming Of Age Day, the Japanese stock market has finished lower in three straight sessions, stumbling almost 900 points or 2.4 percent along the way. The Nikkei 225 now rests just beneath the 39,200-point plateau and it may see another soft start on Tuesday as it catches up on missed weak sentiment. The global forecast for the Asian markets is murky, with support from the oil companies likely offset by weakness from the technology shares. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mostly higher and the Asian markets figure to split the difference. The Nikkei finished sharply lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares, technology stocks and automobile producers. For the day, the index stumbled 414.70 points or 1.05 percent to finish at 39,190.40 after trading between 39,166.05 and 39,591.46. Among the actives, Nissan Motor added 0.67 percent, while Mazda Motor slumped 1.57 percent, Toyota Motor plunged 2.43 percent, Honda Motor tumbled 1.61 percent, Softbank Group lost 0.84 percent, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial sank 0.73 percent, Mizuho Financial retreated 1.94 percent, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial stumbled 2.24 percent, Mitsubishi Electric shed 0.64 percent, Sony Group fell 0.31 percent, Panasonic Holdings dropped 0.95 percent and Hitachi surrendered 2,53 percent. The lead from Wall Street is mixed to higher as the major averages opened on opposite sides of the unchanged line on Monday and finished in the same manner.

The Dow rallied 359.95 points or 0.86 percent to finish at 42,298.40, while the NASDAQ slumped 74.01 points or 0.39 percent to close at 19,087.62 and the S&P 500 rose 8.27 points or 0.14 percent to end at 5,835.31.

Weakness in the tech sector weighed on Wall Street early in the session, as AI darling and market leader Nvidia (NVDA) plunged by as much as 4.7 percent.

Ongoing concerns about the outlook for interest rates also generated negative sentiment following last Friday's stronger-than-expected monthly jobs report.

Selling pressure waned over the course of the trading session, however, leading some traders to pick up stocks at reduced levels as the S&P 500 rebounded from its lowest intraday level in over two months.

Oil prices rose sharply to a five-month high on Monday amid potential supply risks after the U.S. imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia's oil exports, while a stronger dollar also weighed. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for February closed up $2.25 or nearly 3 percent at $78.82 a barrel. Closer to home, Japan will see November figures for current account and December data for bank lending and for the eco watchers index later today. In November, the current account surplus was 2.456 trillion yen. In December, bank lending rose 3.0 percent on year, while the eco watchers survey had a score of 49.4.