TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average fell more than 1% on Thursday, touching one-month intraday lows after a slump on Wall Street and a spike in global yields dampened sentiment.
The Nikkei was down 1.51% at 37,974.47 by the midday break, after declining as much as 2.4% earlier in the session to 37,617.00, a level last touched on April 26.
It was set for its third consecutive day of declines.
The broader Topix was down 0.73% at 2721.61.
Weighing on the market was a dip in US stocks overnight as Treasury yields rose to four-week peaks and concerns continued over the timing and scale of possible US interest rate cuts.
Meanwhile, the 10-year Japanese government bond (JGB) yield hit its highest level since July 2011 at 1.1% in the Asian morning as investors bet on another rate hike in Japan as soon as July and remained wary of tapering of the central bank’s bond purchases.
While low compared with their US peers, JGB yields, which were higher than a decade peak, still had a significant impact on market sentiment, said Hiroshi Namioka, chief strategist at T&D Asset Management.
“It’s a bit of a psychological shock for market players who haven’t seen yields rise like this until now, or rather, who have become numb as easy monetary policy continued for such a long time.”
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Technical reasons such as end-of-the-month portfolio rebalancing also contributed to the Nikkei’s steep decline, he said.
Major technology shares, which tend to hurt under rising yields since higher rates make borrowing more expensive, were among some of the biggest drags on the index.
Chip-related stock Advantest fell 5.5% to become the worst percentage performer in the morning, while Tokyo Electron dropped 2.2%.
AI-focused startup investor SoftBank Group slipped 2.2%. Among other heavyweight shares, Uniqlo parent firm Fast Retailing declined 2.4% to swipe about 96 index points off the Nikkei.
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