Tokyo Stocks Slide as Nikkei 225 Drops Nearly 2%

what happened

According to TradingView, citing RTTNews and dpa-AFX, the Japanese stock market fell sharply on Wednesday, extending the previous session's losses. The Nikkei 225 lost 1,207.02 points, or 1.91%, to 61,816.02, after touching a low of 61,810.21. Weakness centered on banks and technology names: SoftBank dropped almost 6%, Panasonic more than 5% and Advantest more than 4%. Exporters such as Mitsubishi Electric edged higher.

The Bank of Japan said the monetary base fell 13.6% year on year in October to 532.571 trillion yen, which was better than the forecast decline of 14.0%. The dollar traded in the lower 158-yen range. On Wall Street, the Nasdaq rose 0.8%, the S&P 500 gained 0.4%, and the Dow Jones lost 0.4%. In Europe, the FTSE 100 slipped 1.1%, the DAX fell 0.5% and the CAC 40 dipped 0.3%. December WTI crude dropped $0.52 to $95.94 a barrel as expectations grew for a possible settlement between the United States and Iran.

why it matters

The Tokyo decline looks like a continuation of investor caution in financial and technology shares. For markets, the yen staying weak near 158 per dollar and oil responding to hopes of de-escalation between Washington and Tehran are the key threads to watch, since they could shape Japanese banks and exporters in the coming sessions.

market impact

Japanese banks and tech shares: selling pressure on the Nikkei 225 index.

• ▼Nikkei 225 pressure down — selling in banks and technology companies pulls the index lower
• ▼Brent and WTI pressure down — hopes of a possible US-Iran settlement reduce oil prices

instruments