TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average dropped 1% on Wednesday, weighed down by a fall in heavyweight Fast Retailing, owner of the Uniqlo store chain, and overnight declines on Wall Street.
Tech stocks tracked a slide among US peers, but a powerful quake that rocked Taiwan had only a limited impact on Japanese chip shares.
The Nikkei lost 0.97% to 39,451.85 as of the close, and earlier dipped to the lowest since March 18 at 39,217.04.
Fast Retailing, which is the most heavily-weighted stock in the index by a wide margin, lost 3.34% to be the biggest drag, contributing 154 basis points of the Nikkei’s total 387 point decline.
The stock tumbled from a record high reached earlier in the week after the company announced late Tuesday its first year-on-year sales decline at domestic Uniqlo outlets for three months.
Big tech names like chip-testing equipment maker Advantest dropped 2.14%, while Nintendo lost more than 4%. Artificial intelligence-focused startup investor SoftBank Group slid 1.24%. Tech shares underperform when borrowing costs rise, and US long-term Treasury yields jumped to the highest since November at more than 4.4% overnight.
The broader and less tech-weighted Topix index slipped 0.29%, with an index of growth stocks tumbling 0.8% while value shares added 0.2%. The Nikkei has also succumbed to profit taking at the start of Japan’s new fiscal year this month, said Shoki Omori, chief Japan desk strategist at Mizuho Securities.
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