Japanese Market Modestly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is modestly lower in choppy trading on Wednesday, giving up the slight gains in the previous session, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 27,900 level, despite the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight, as traders are still reacting to data showing the country's economy unexpectedly shrinking for the first time in a year in the third quarter. The geopolitical situation also weighed on market sentiment following reports of Russian missile strikes crossing into Poland and killing two people.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 111.79 points or 0.40 percent at 27,878.38, after hitting a low of 27,743.15 earlier. Japanese stocks closed slightly higher on Tuesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining more than 3 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is losing more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is losing almost 1 percent and Toyota is edging down 0.4 percent.

In the tech space, Tokyo Electron and Screen Holdings are gaining more than 1 percent each, Advantest is advancing almost 2 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are edging down 0.1 to 0.5 percent each, while Mizuho Financial is losing almost 1 percent.

Among the major exporters, Sony is losing almost 1.5 percent, while Canon, Mitsubishi Electric and Panasonic are edging down 0.3 to 0.5 percent each.

Among the other major losers, Olympus is plunging more than 5 percent, while T&D Holdings, Mitsubishi Motors and Dai-ichi Life are losing almost 4 percent each. Subaru, Tokio Marine, NTN and Sompo Holdings are declining more than 3 percent each, while Terumo, Isetan Mitsukoshi, MS&AD Insurance, Bridgestone, Nissan Chemical and Yokohama Rubber are down almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Pacific Metals is gaining more than 4 percent.

In economic news, the value of core machine orders in Japan was down a seasonally adjusted 4.6 percent on month in September, the Cabinet Office said on Wednesday - coming in at 868.0 billion yen. That was shy of forecasts for an increase of 0.7 percent following the 5.8 percent contraction in August.

On a yearly basis, core machine orders rose 2.9 percent - again missing expectations for a gain of 7.4 percent and down from 9.7 percent in the previous month. For the third quarter of 2022, core machine orders fell 1.6 percent on quarter and gained 7.9 percent on year. For the fourth quarter, orders are forecast to add 3.6 percent on quarter and 5.3 percent on year.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 139 yen-range on Wednesday.

On Wall Street, stocks gave back ground over the course of the trading session but managed to close mostly higher after showing a substantial move to the upside in early trading on Tuesday.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 162.19 points or 1.5 percent to 11,358.41 percent, the S&P 500 advanced 34.48 points or 0.9 percent to 3,991.73 and the Dow inched up 56.22 points or 0.2 percent to 33,592.92.

Meanwhile, the major European markets turned in a mixed performance on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index edged down by 0.2 percent, the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index both rose by 0.5 percent.

Crude oil futures settled higher Tuesday, thanks to the smaller-than-expected increase in U.S. producer prices in October. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended higher by $0.94 at 86.81 a barrel.