Japanese Market Modestly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is modestly lower on Thursday after being in the green most of the morning session, giving up the gains in the previous two sessions, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 27,500 level, following the mostly negative cues from Wall Street overnight, dragged by weakness in technology and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 71.93 points or 0.26 percent to 27,444.60, after hitting a low of 27,408.54 and a high of 27,617.80 earlier. Japanese stocks closed modestly higher on Wednesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining almost 1 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is adding more than 2 percent. Among automakers, Toyota is edging up 0.4 percent, while Honda is edging down 0.4 percent.

In the tech space, Screen Holdings is edging down 0.3 percent and Tokyo Electron is losing more than 1 percent, while Advantest is edging up 0.1 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mizuho Financial are edging down 0.1 to 0.5 percent each. Among the major exporters, Mitsubishi Electric is edging down 0.1 percent, while Canon and Sony are losing almost 1 percent each. Panasonic is gaining almost 2 percent.

Among the other major gainers, Sumitomo Metal Mining is gaining almost 4 percent and Dowa Holdings is adding almost 3 percent.

Conversely, there are no other major losers.

In economic news, the monetary base in Japan was down 1.6 percent on year in February, the Bank of Japan said on Thursday, coming in at 646.440 trillion yen. That beat forecasts for a drop of 3.2 percent following the 3.8 percent decline in January. The adjusted monetary base was up 31.1 percent on year to 657.838 trillion yen, slowing from 43.8 percent in January.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 136 yen-range on Thursday.

On Wall Street, stocks continued to experience choppy trading on Wednesday following the lackluster performance seen in the previous session. The major averages spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line.

Eventually, the Dow ended the day up 5.14 points or less than a tenth of a percent at 32,661.84, while the Nasdaq slid 76.06 points or 0.7 percent to 11,379.48 and the S&P 500 fell 18.76 points or 0.5 percent at 3,951.39.

Meanwhile, the major European markets turned in a mixed performance on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index climbed by 0.5 percent, the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index fell by 0.4 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively. Crude oil futures settled at near two-week high on Wednesday, boosted by upbeat China factory data that raised the outlook for energy demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April climbed $0.64 or 0.8 percent at $77.69 a barrel.