Japanese Market Significantly Lower

(RTTNews) - Giving up some of the sharp gains in the previous session, the Japanese stock market is significantly lower on Tuesday, with the Nikkei 225 falling well below the 38,200 level, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight, with weakness in technology and financial stocks ahead of the Bank of Japan monetary policy announcement on Wednesday.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 323.29 points or 0.84 percent at 38,145.34, after hitting a low of 38,076.70 earlier. Japanese shares ended sharply higher on Monday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing almost 2 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is also down almost 2 percent. Among automakers, Honda is edging up 0.3 percent and Toyota is also edging up 0.5 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is losing almost 1 percent, Screen Holdings is declining more than 3 percent and Tokyo Electron is down more than 1 percent.

In the banking sector, Mizuho Financial, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are losing almost 2 percent each.

The major exporters are mostly higher. Panasonic is gaining almost 1 percent, Sony is adding 1.5 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is edging up 0.5 percent, while Canon is losing more than 2 percent.

Among the other major losers, Komatsu is slipping almost 6 percent and Shionogi & Co. is losing almost 5 percent, while Disco, Rakuten Group and Nippon Electric Glass are sliding more than 4 percent each. Socionext is down almost 4 percent and Fujitsu is declining more than 3 percent, while Shin-Etsu Chemical, Mercari, Sumco, Shizuoka Financial, Chiba Bank and Fukuoka Financial are losing almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Fanuc is gaining almost 3 percent.

In economic news, the unemployment rate in Japan came in at a seasonally adjusted 2.6 percent in June, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said on Tuesday. That was beneath expectations for 2.6 percent, which would have been unchanged from the May reading.

The jobs-to-applicant ratio was 1.23, shy of forecasts for 1.24 - which also would have been unchanged. The participation rate was 63.7 percent - exceeding expectations for 63.4 percent and up from 63.3 percent in the previous month.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 154 yen-range on Tuesday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved to the upside early in the session on Monday but showed a lack of direction over the course of the trading day. The major averages spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line after posting strong gains last Friday.

The major averages eventually ended the session narrowly mixed. While the Dow edged down 49.41 points or 0.1 percent to 40,539.93, the Nasdaq inched up 12.32 points or 0.1 percent to 17,370.20 and the S&P 500 crept up 4.44 points or 0.1 percent to 5,463.54.

Meanwhile, most European stocks moved to the downside on the day. The French CAC 40 Index slumped by 1.0 percent and the German DAX Index fell by 0.5 percent, although the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index bucked the downtrend and inched up by 0.1 percent.

Crude oil prices fell to a seven-week low on Monday amid concerns about the outlook for demand from China, and ahead of Thursday's OPEC meeting. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for September ended down $1.35 or 1.8 percent at $75.81 a barrel.