Japanese Market Modestly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is modestly lower on Thursday, extending the losses in the previous session, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 28,400 level, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight and dragged by weakness in technology stocks. The turmoil in the US banking sector is also hurting sentiment.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 91.15 points or 0.32 percent to 28,325.32, after hitting a low of 28,241.67 earlier. Japanese stocks closed significantly lower on Wednesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing almost 1 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging up 0.2 percent. Among automakers, Toyota is edging up 0.1 percent and Honda is adding almost 1 percent.

In the tech space, Screen Holdings is losing almost 2 percent, Tokyo Electron is declining 1.5 percent and Advantest is plunging more than 11 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is losing almost 1 percent, while Mizuho Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial are edging up 0.1 to 0.3 percent each. Among the major exporters, Mitsubishi Electric is edging up 0.4 percent, Sony is gaining more than 2 percent and Canon is advancing almost 4 percent, while Panasonic is losing almost 1 percent.

Among the other major losers, Nomura Holdings is losing almost 8 percent, Hitachi Zosen is down almost 4 percent, Hino Motors is down more than 3 percent and Shimizu is slipping almost 3 percent.

Conversely, JTEKT is gaining almost 5 percent, Nitto Denko is adding more than 4 percent, Hitachi Construction Machinery is up almost 4 percent.

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

On Wall Street, stock indexes turned in a mixed performance during trading on Wednesday following the sell-off seen in the previous session. While the tech-heavy Nasdaq bounced off its lowest closing level in almost a month, the Dow and the S&P 500 saw further downside.

The Nasdaq pulled back well off its best levels of the day but still closed up 55.19 points or 0.5 percent at 11,854.35. Meanwhile, the Dow slid 228.96 points or 0.7 percent to 33,301.87, and the S&P 500 fell 15.64 points or 0.4 percent to 4,055.99.

Meanwhile, the major European markets also moved to the downside on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index slumped by 0.9 percent, the German DAX Index and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index both fell by 0.5 percent.

Crude oil futures ended sharply lower Wednesday as worries about the outlook for energy demand dragged down oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June were down $2.77 or 3.6 percent to settle at $74.30 a barrel.