The Japanese stock market is declining on Wednesday following the mixed cues overnight from Wall Street and on caution ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision due later in the day. Investors shrugged off better-than-expected Japanese core machinery orders data.
In late-morning trades, the benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is losing 55.02 points or 0.24 percent to 22,811.15, off a low of 22,798.20 earlier.
The major exporters are mostly lower. Sony is down 0.2 percent, Canon is losing 0.4 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is declining almost 1 percent, while Panasonic is advancing more than 1 percent.
Shares of Toshiba are adding more than 1 percent after the company and Western Digital agreed to resolve their dispute over Toshiba's plan to sell its chip unit, and also decided to proceed with future investments in their ongoing flash memory collaboration.
In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is down more than 1 percent, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is advancing almost 2 percent. Among automakers, Toyota is adding almost 1 percent and Honda is rising 0.3 percent.
In the oil space, Inpex is declining almost 1 percent and Japan Petroleum is down more than 1 percent after crude oil prices fell overnight.
Among the market's best performers, Nippon Yusen is gaining almost 3 percent, while JGC Corp. and Shizuoka Bank are rising more than 2 percent each.
On the flip side, DeNA Co is losing almost 4 percent, Sumco Corp. is lower by 3 percent and Shin-Etsu Chemical is down almost 3 percent.
In economic news, the Cabinet Office said that the value of core machine orders in Japan jumped a seasonally adjusted 5.0 percent on month in October, standing at 850.9 billion yen. That beat forecasts for a gain of 2.7 percent following the 8.1 percent decline in September.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the mid 113 yen-range on Wednesday.
On Wall Street, stocks finished on opposite sides of the unchanged line on Tuesday, although the Dow and the S&P hit fresh record closing highs. Traders were reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the monetary policy announcement by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday.
The Dow added 118.77 points or 0.49 percent to 24,504.80 and the S&P 500 gained 4.12 points or 0.15 percent to 2,664.11, while the Nasdaq fell 12.76 points or 0.19 percent to 6,862.32.
The European markets ended with modest gains on Tuesday. The DAX of Germany climbed 0.46 percent, the CAC 40 of France rose 0.75 percent and the FTSE 100 of the U.K. gained 0.63 percent.
Crude oil prices tumbled Tuesday amid widespread expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates and signal further monetary policy tightening is imminent. WTI oil declined $0.85 or 1.5 percent to settle at $57.14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
by RTT Staff Writer
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