Nikkei tracks Wall Street decline, SoftBank Group tanks nearly 9pc

TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average fell on Friday, weighed down by overnight losses on Wall Street, with SoftBank Group leading the decline, down nearly 9 percent.

The Nikkei fell 1.21 percent to 56,941.97, but it rose 5 percent for the week in its second consecutive weekly gain.

The broader Topix slipped 1.63 percent to 3,818.85 and rose 3.2 percent for the week.

Wall Street indexes fell sharply on Thursday, with the technology-heavy Nasdaq slumping 2 percent, as investors intensified their selloff of tech shares and fled transport stocks amid worries about artificial intelligence disruption.

SoftBank Group slipped 8.86 percent to become the biggest drag on the Nikkei, even as the technology investor booked a fourth consecutive quarterly profit on Thursday, helped by the rising valuation of its OpenAI investment.

Their shares shaved 334 points off the Nikkei, which lost 698 points.

“There was little positive surprise from the results, so SoftBank shares fell along with the market move,” said Shigetoshi Kamada, an advisor at the research department at Tachibana Securities.