TMCnet News
Nikkei loses 0.37 pct on falling U.S. stocks [Cihan News Agency (Turkey)](Cihan News Agency (Turkey) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) TOKYO (CIHAN)- The Nikkei stock index closed negative, losing 0.37 percent Thursday, following a roller coaster series of runs recently, with the market being dragged down eventually today by falling U.S. shares overnight. The Nikkei 225 index lost 56.81 points to finish at 15,138.96, while the broader Topix index of all first-section issue lost 0.33 percent, or 4.07 points, to close at 1,232.34. The market got off to a lackluster start following a largely muted lead from Wall Street overnight with trading remaining rangebound, until investors were given a flash of encouragement mid-morning with data from the HSBC flash China manufacturing purchasing managers' index for October. The factory sector increased in October, the private data showed, owing to more foreign and domestic orders, with the flash HSBC/Market manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) edging up to a three-month high of 50.4 from a final reading of 50.2 in September, just shy of median analysts' forecasts. But overall investors were still looking to square away positions and go after profits, market players here said, despite the U.S. dollar's rise to 107.23 yen from 107.14 yen logged in New York Wednesday. "The market was pressured by selling to lock in profits following the Nikkei's sharp rebound of 391 points the previous day," noted Hiroichi Nishi, assistant general manager of equity research at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. Other analysts from a broader perspective said that due to the market's pendulum-like nature of late, overshooting and making corrections were par for the course, but at the end of the day investors would be looking for fundamentals to guide longer term positions. The sharp run-up is inviting yet another day of profit-taking. This is the pattern of overshooting and correction that has become the norm, said Daisuke Uno, a strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, referring to large swings in the market since last week. "The bottom line is that investors are wary of weak economic fundamentals in Europe and Japan, slowing (in) China and the overstretched U.S. market rally to place much faith in any more stock gains in the next several weeks," Uno added. Honda reversed 1.4 percent to close at 3,365 yen and heavily weighted Nikkei component SoftBank Corp. weighed on the market, losing 0.7 percent to close at 7,241 yen. Orix, for its part, fell 3 percent to end the day at 1,300 yen. Nidec, which makes electric motors for hard drives, slumped 1 percent to 6,733 yen, following the company posting a 37 percent gain in first-half net income to 37.2 billion yen (347 million U.S. dollars), in line with media analysts' forecasts, despite the firm 's robust results in the April-September first half. Consumer electronics maker Sony relinquished 0.39 percent to close at 1,901 yen, after reports that U.S. billionaire Daniel Loeb said he had sold his stake in the firm having been unable to spin off part of the behemoth's entertainment units last year. Trading volume on Thursday dropped to 2.04 billion shares on the Tokyo Exchange's First Section, down from Wednesday's volume of 2.13 billion shares, with declining issues beating advancing ones by 1,183 to 534. (Cihan/Xinhua) CIHAN (c) 2014 Cihan News Agency. All right reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |