Japanese Market Significantly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is significantly lower on Wednesday, giving up some of the gains in the previous three sessions, with the Nikkei 225 falling to remain a tad above the 28,000 mark, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight, with losses across most sectors, led by commodity-linked stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 284.50 or 1.01 percent at 28,002.92, after hitting a low of 28,133.57 earlier. Japanese stocks ended modestly higher on Tuesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is flat and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is losing more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is declining more than 1 percent and Toyota is losing almost 2 percent.

In the tech space, Screen Holdings and Tokyo Electron are flat, while Advantest is down more than 1 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mizuho Financial are down more than 1 percent each, while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is losing more than 2 percent.

Among the major exporters, Canon is losing almost 1 percent, Sony is down more than 1 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is declining almost 2 percent, while Panasonic is gaining more than 2 percent.

Among the other major losers, Ebara and JFE Holdings are losing more than 3 percent each, while Dowa Holdings, Kobe Steel, Fukuoka Financial, Komatsu, Japan Steel Works, Idemitsu Kosan, UBE Corp., Nippon Sheet Glass, Hitachi Construction Machinery, ENEOS Holdings, Chiba Bank, Tokai Carbon and Mitsui Chemicals are all declining almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, there are no other major gainers.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the mid-131 yen-range on Wednesday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved back to the downside over the course of the trading day on Tuesday after trending higher in recent sessions. The major averages showed a lack of direction early in the session but slid firmly into negative territory as the day progressed.

The major averages regained some ground going into the close but remained in the red. The Dow slid 198.77 points or 0.6 percent to 33,402.38, the Nasdaq fell 63.13 points or 0.5 percent to 12,126.37 and the S&P 500 declined 23.91 points or 0.6 percent to 4,100.60.

Meanwhile, the major European markets turned in a mixed performance on the day. While the German DAX Index inched up by 0.1 percent, the French CAC 40 Index closed nearly unchanged and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index fell by 0.5 percent.

Crude oil prices climbed higher on Tuesday, extending gains to a fourth straight session as the decision of the OPEC+ to cut crude production continued to support oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May ended higher by $0.29 or 0.4 percent at $80.71 a barrel.