Japanese stocks retreated on Monday as the coronavirus outbreak worsened over the weekend and more countries imposed or tightened lockdown measures, raising fears that Tokyo could also go into its first-ever lockdown.
The benchmark Nikkei average dropped 1.6% to 19,084.97 after Friday's 3.9% gain. The Nikkei's volatility index, a measure of investors' volatility expectations based on option pricing and considered to be a fear gauge, rose 4.2% to 54.98, but still off a nine-year peak of 60.86 hit on March 16.
The broader Topix shed 1.6% to 1,435.54. All but six of the 33 sector sub-indexes on the Tokyo Stock Exchange were in negative territory, with air transport, banking and insurance being the worst performers.
Blue-chip firms weren't exempt from the selloff, with Toyota Motor Co Ltd falling 3.3% as the automaker said the group's global production in February slid 12.2% year-on-year.
Sony Corp shed 3.8% after the company said the scale of the impact from the coronavirus outbreak would be large enough to eliminate the entire upward revisions to its annual earnings forecasts made in February.
Major oil refiners JXTG Holdings Inc and Idemitsu Kosan Co Ltd sank 3.9% and 4.5%, respectively, as US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell below $20 a barrel in early trade on Monday.
As Tokyo moves closer toward a potential citywide lockdown over the pandemic, shares of food makers bucked the overall weakness. Nichirei Corp climbed 4.1%, Yamazaki Baking Co Ltd added 3.8%, and Toyo Suisan Kaisha Ltd gained 6.3%.
Fujifilm Holdings Corp jumped 6.0% as Abe said in a news conference on Saturday that the government would push for approval of the company's Avigan anti-flu drug, also known as favipiravir, as a potential coronavirus treatment.
Elsewhere, the Nikkei's heavyweight SoftBank Group slumped 5.0% after OneWeb, a satellite operator that SBG backs, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to pursue a sale of its business amid the virus outbreak.