The Japanese stock market is modestly lower on Thursday following the negative cues overnight from Wall Street after a sell-off in tech stocks. Investors also remained cautious as they monitored the ongoing U.S. stimulus talks and a stalemate in Brexit negotiations.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 81.76 points or 0.30 percent to 26,736.18, after falling to a low of 26,639.98 earlier. The Japanese market closed at a near 30-year high on Wednesday.
Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining almost 5 percent, while Fast Retailing is declining almost 1 percent.
Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that SoftBank Group is considering going private by gradually buying back outstanding shares until founder Masayoshi Son has a big enough stake to squeeze out remaining investors.
In the tech space, Advantest is losing more than 3 percent and Tokyo Electron is down more than 2 percent after their U.S. peers fell overnight.
The major exporters are mostly lower. Mitsubishi Electric is losing more than 1 percent, Sony is declining almost 1 percent and Panasonic is down 0.6 percent, while Canon is rising more than 2 percent.
Among automakers, Toyota is advancing more than 1 percent and Honda is adding 0.2 percent. In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is rising 0.5 percent, while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is unchanged.
Among the other major gainers, Mitsui Mining & Smelting is gaining more than 6 percent, Konica Minolta is rising more than 5 percent and Kawasaki Heavy Industries is higher by more than 4 percent.
Conversely, Taiyo Yuden, Screen Holdings, Trend Micro and Sumco Corp. are losing more than 3 percent each.
On the economic front, the Bank of Japan said that producer prices in Japan were down 2.2 percent on year in November, in line with expectations following the 2.1 percent decline in October. Export prices were flat on month and down 2.1 percent on year in November, while import prices rose 0.5 percent on month and plummeted 10.6 percent on year.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 104 yen-range on Thursday.
On Wall Street, stocks retreated after posting fresh intraday highs on Wednesday and ended the session notably lower due to a sell-off in technology shares. Investors were tracking the developments on the fiscal stimulus front, and the updates on the coronavirus vaccine front. Profit taking after recent gains also contributed to the market's fall.
The Dow ended with a loss of 105.07 points or 0.35 percent at 30,068.81, after hitting a high of 30,319.70. The S&P 500, which spurted to 3,712.39, ended the day at 3,672.82, losing 29.43 points or 0.79 percent, while the Nasdaq slumped 243.82 points or 1.94 percent to settle at 12,338.95, way off a record high of 12,607.14 touched in early trades.
The major European closed mostly higher on Wednesday. Germany, the U.K., and Switzerland closed positive, while France drifted lower.
Crude oil futures settled slightly lower on Wednesday, weighed down by data showing a sharp increase in crude oil stockpiles in the U.S. in the week ended October 4. WTI crude for January settled at $45.52 a barrel, down $0.08 or about 0.2 percent from previous close.
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