TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei fell to its lowest in almost two months on Thursday as technology heavyweights tracked a sharp decline on Wall Street overnight.
The Nikkei share average fell 1.77% to 25,748.72, the lowest since March 15.
The broader Topix fell 1.19% to 1,829.18. “It was hard to bet on Japanese stocks after the Nasdaq’s fall overnight,” said Shigetoshi Kamada, general manager at the research department at Tachibana Securities.
“As long as the Federal Reserve maintains its policy tightening, investors will remain cautious about investing in risk assets.”
US stocks ended sharply lower overnight, with the Nasdaq dropping more than 3% and the Dow falling for a fifth straight day after inflation data did little to ease investor worries over the outlook for interest rates and the economy.
Technology investor SoftBank Group tanked 8.03%, dragging the telecommunication sector 4.06% lower to make it the worst performing segment.
Telecom companies KDDI and SoftBank Corp fell 3.01% and 5.95% respectively. Chip-related stocks Tokyo Electron and Advantest slid 1.6% and 3.63% respectively. Medical services platform M3 tumbled 10.29%.
Japan’s Nikkei pulled lower by weakness in US stocks; Uniqlo owner tumbles
Toyota Motor, which warned of annual profit declines, ended 1.54% lower after trading in positive territory.
Peer Mitsubishi Motor jumped 6.18% after forecasting a rise in profit.
Olympus surged 11.24% as the endoscope maker forecast a jump in annual profit.
There were 88 advancers on the Nikkei index against 135 decliners.
The volume of shares traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s main board was 1.52 billion, compared with the average of 1.22 billion in the past 30 days.
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