On Wednesday, the Japanese stock market significantly dropped, surrendering some of the gains achieved in the preceding two sessions. This came after Wall Street's mixed performance the previous night. The Nikkei 225 fell beneath the 35,900 mark, with the decline in heavyweight indices and tech stocks being slightly counterbalanced by a rise in financial stocks.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index has dropped by 168.15 points, down to 35,897.71 after reaching an earlier low of 35,704.58. Despite this, Japanese stocks slightly increased on Tuesday.
Major market constituent SoftBank Group saw a near 2 percent drop, while retail company Fast Retailing declined by over 1 percent. In contrast, automakers Honda and Toyota experienced gains of nearly 2 percent and 0.2 percent respectively.
In the tech sector, Advantest and Tokyo Electron lost close to 2 percent each, and Screen Holdings gained nearly 1 percent. Furthermore, in the banking sphere, both Mizuho Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial saw gains of over 1 percent, with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial increasing by near 1 percent.
Among major exporters, Canon surged by over 6 percent and Sony gained more than 1 percent, while Mitsubishi Electric slightly declined by 0.4 percent, and Panasonic lost nearly 1 percent.
Noteworthy losses include a stark drop of more than 17 percent for Alps Alpine. Fanuc, Pacific Metals, Keyence, M3, Taiyo Yuden, and Yokogawa Electric all experienced losses of almost 3 percent each. On the contrary, Komatsu, Hitachi Construction Machinery, Furukawa Electric, Osaka Gas, and Fujikura saw increases of over 7 percent, more than 4 percent, almost 4 percent, over 3 percent, and nearly 3 percent respectively.
In economic news, data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry reveals that in December, Japan's industrial production increased by a seasonally adjusted 1.8 percent. This fell short of the anticipated 2.4 percent increase following a 0.9 percent decline in November. Annually, industrial production dropped by 0.7 percent.
In December, Japan's total retail sales value rose by 2.1 percent, amounting to 15.515 trillion yen. However, this missed the forecasted increase of 4.7 percent following an impressive 5.4 percent hike in November. Retail sales declined by 2.9 percent monthly. In the fourth quarter of 2023, retail sales rose by 3.8 percent annually but dropped 1.7 percent over the quarter, amounting to 42.989 trillion yen. Throughout 2023, retail sales ascended by 5.6 percent to 162.996 trillion yen.
In currency markets, the U.S. dollar is performing well in the high 147 yen-range this Wednesday.
On Wall Street, stocks displayed mixed performance on Tuesday with varied results across sectors. After a positive session on Monday, the tech-dominant Nasdaq experienced a notable retreat, while the Dow set a new record closing high.
The Dow ended the day up with a 133.86 points increase, at 38,467.31, while the Nasdaq slid 118.15 points to 15,509.90. The S&P 500 fluctuated before closing down 2.96 points at 4,924.97.
European markets showed a clear increase on Tuesday. The German DAX Index slightly grew by 0.2 percent, while the UK's FTSE 100 Index and the French CAC 40 Index increased by 0.4 percent and 0.5 percent respectively.
Similarly, crude oil prices rose sharply on Tuesday. This largely countered the previous day's significant drop following the International Monetary Fund's raised forecast for global growth in 2024. West Texas Intermediate for March delivery climbed $1.04 to $77.82 per barrel.
