Japan's Nikkei falls after eight-session winning streak
- The Nikkei fell 1% to 71,645.26 after swinging between gains and losses
TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average drifted lower on Tuesday in choppy trade as traders took a breather after an eight-session winning streak.
The Nikkei fell 1% to 71,645.26 after swinging between gains and losses.
The broader Topix slid 0.8% to 4,061.23. “After a string of gains, the market appears to be seeing some mild profit-taking,” said Masahiro Ichikawa, chief market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management.
There were 146 decliners in the Nikkei 225 against 76 advancers.
AI-related stocks that have underpinned the Nikkei’s surge recently were mixed. Cable and optical fibre maker Fujikura was the index’s top performer with an 8.8% jump, while tech investment giant SoftBank Group fell 8.1%.
Among the biggest percentage gainers, dairy and confectionery maker Meiji Holdings rose 3.1%, while pharmaceutical company Otsuka Holdings gained 2.1%.
On the downside, cable and components maker Furukawa Electric fell 10%, while non-ferrous metals producer Mitsui Kinzoku lost 8%.
The Nikkei has surged in recent months, hitting successive record highs on sustained buying in AI- and semiconductor-related stocks.
The benchmark crossed the 72,000 level for the first time on Monday, just two sessions after topping 71,000.
At the same time, a technical indicator, the 14-day relative strength index, for the Nikkei stood at 73 as of Monday, above the 70 mark that indicates shares may have risen too fast and are poised for a reversal.
The index was at 70.7 on Tuesday.
“The market had already been looking overheated for quite a while as richly valued names kept rising, so it would not have been surprising to see a correction at any time,” Ichikawa said.
“Today, the selling appeared to pile up.”
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