Japanese Market Notably Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is trading notably lower on Monday, extending the sharp losses in the previous session, following the broadly negative from Wall Street on Friday, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 68,900 level, with weakness in index heavyweights, exporters, technology and financial stocks partially offset by gains in automaker stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 461.67 points or 0.67 percent at 68,899.21, after hitting a low of 67,997.57 earlier. Japanese shares ended sharply lower on Friday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is sliding almost 6 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging up 0.5 percent. Among automakers, Honda is gaining more than 1 percent and Toyota is edging up 0.2 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is declining almost 4 percent and Screen Holdings is losing more than 2 percent, while Tokyo Electron is edging up 0.2 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Mizuho Financial are losing almost 1 percent each.

The major exporters are mostly lower. Mitsubishi Electric is losing more than 1 percent, Canon is down more than 1 percent and Panasonic is slipping more than 4 percent, while Sony is adding more than 2 percent.

Among the other major losers, Fujikura and Kioxia Holdings are tumbling more than 5 percent each, while Lasertec is slipping more than 4 percent and Ibiden is declining almost 4 percent. Sumitomo Electric Industries and Sumitomo Metal Mining are losing more than 3 percent each, while Mitsubishi Materials and Denka are declining almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, SHIFT is soaring more than 10 percent, BayCurrent is jumping more than 8 percent and Taiyo Yuden is surging almost 8 percent, while Trend Micro, Nomura Research Institute and NEC are advancing more than 6 percent each. Aeon, Tokio Marine, Mercari and LY are gaining almost 5 percent each, while Shiseido and CyberAgent are adding more than 4 percent each. Nintendo, Rakuten Group and BANDAI NAMCO are up almost 4 percent each.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 161 yen-range on Monday.

On Wall Street, stocks fluctuated over the course of the trading session on Friday but largely maintained a negative bias before ending the day lower.

The Dow lost 44.49 points or 0.1 percent to 51,876.11, the Nasdaq decreased 60.98 points or 0.2 percent to 25,297.62 and the S&P 500 slipped 3.47 points or 0.1 percent to 7,354.02.

The major European markets also ended the day in the negative. The UK's FTSE 100 ended lower by 0.21 percent, Germany's DAX dropped 1.29 percent and France's CAC 40 shed 0.55 percent.

Crude oil prices tumbled on Friday as optimism increases on resumption of oil flow from the Arab region. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery was down $2.60 or 3.62 percent at $69.32 per barrel.