Japanese Market Notably Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is notably lower on Thursday, giving up the gains in the previous session, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 27,400 level, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight, with losses across most sectors, led by financial stocks, as traders reacted to the US Fed's decision to continue raising interest rates despite recent turmoil in the banking industry.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 134.17 points or 0.49 percent to 27,332.44, after hitting a low of 27,175.63 earlier. Japanese stocks closed sharply higher on Wednesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing more than 1 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is also down more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Toyota is losing almost 1 percent and Honda is edging down 0.5 percent.

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

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is losing more than 2 percent, while Mizuho Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial are declining almost 2 percent each. Among the major exporters, Panasonic and Sony are losing almost 2 percent each, while Canon is declining almost 1 percent. Mitsubishi Electric is flat.

Among the other major losers, T&D Holdings, Concordia Financial and Dai-ichi Life are losing more than 3 percent each, while Eisai and Rakuten Group are declining almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Recruit Holdings is gaining almost 5 percent and Ebara is adding almost 3 percent.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 130 yen-range on Thursday.

On Wall Street, stocks showed a lack of direction throughout much of the session on Friday before coming under pressure in the final hour of trading. The major averages all moved sharply lower, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq pulling back after reaching its best intraday level in over a month.

The major averages finished the session at their worst levels of the day. The Dow plunged 530.49 points or 1.6 percent to 32,030.11, the Nasdaq tumbled 190.15 points or 1.6 percent to 11,669.96 and the S&P 500 dove 65.90 points or 1.7 percent to 3,936.97.

Meanwhile, the major European markets moved to the upside on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index climbed by 0.4 percent, the French CAC 40 Index rose by 0.3 percent and the German DAX Index inched up by 0.1 percent.

Crude oil futures settled higher on Wednesday after data showed that crude inventories rose by 1.117 million barrels last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May settled at $70.90 a barrel, gaining $1.23 or 1.8 percent.