TOKYO
(dpa-AFX) - The Japanese stock market is notably lower on Tuesday following the mixed cues from Wall Street and as a stronger yen dragged down exporters stocks.
In late-morning trades, the benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 287.28 points or 1.70 percent to 16,624.04, off a low of 16,622.22 earlier.
Among the major exporters, Toshiba is losing almost 6 percent, Sony is down more than 3 percent, and Canon as well as Sharp are declining more than 1 percent each.
Automaker Toyota is declining more than 1 percent. Suzuki Motor said it will issue 200 billion yen in convertible bonds and utilize most of its proceeds towards expanding its operations in
India
. The company's shares are losing almost 4 percent.
In the banking space, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is down almost 3 percent.
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone will likely offer more than 400 billion yen or $3.52 billion to acquire Dell's IT services business, according to the Nikkei business daily. Shares of Nippon Telegraph are down more than 2 percent.
SoftBank Group is adding 0.6 percent after the company said Monday that it will reorganize its domestic and foreign operations under separate holding companies.
In the oil space, Inpex is losing 1 percent and refiner JX Holdings is down almost 2 percent despite the surge in crude oil prices overnight.
Among the other major decliners, SKY Perfect JSAT Holdings is losing 5 percent, while Tokyo Gas and Ajionomoto are lower by almost 3 percent each.
On the economic front, the Cabinet Office said in Tuesday's revised reading that
Japan's
gross domestic product was down an annualized 1.1 percent on year in the fourth quarter of 2015. That beat forecasts for a decline of 1.6 percent, following last month's preliminary reading that suggested a contraction of 1.4 percent.
On a quarterly basis, GDP dipped 0.3 percent - which also marked an upward revision from 0.4 percent. GDP added 0.3 percent in the three months prior.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan said that the total value of overall bank lending in
Japan
was up 2.2 percent on year in February, coming in at
496.957 trillion yen. That follows the upwardly revised 2.4 percent increase in January.
The Ministry of Finance noted that
Japan
had a current account surplus of
520.8 billion yen in January - shy of forecasts for a surplus of
700 billion yen, following the
960.7 billion yen surplus in December.
In the currency market, the
U.S.
dollar traded in the mid
113 yen-level on Tuesay, down from Monday's close in the upper
113 yen range in
Tokyo
.
On Wall Street, stocks closed mixed on Monday, with the Dow rising for a fifth consecutive session on gains in the energy sector that helped offset declines in big technology stocks.
The Dow industrials rose 65.28 points or 0.4 percent to 17.072.68 and the S&P 500 gained 1.6 points or 0.1 percent to 2,001.63. However, the Nasdaq Composite finished 8.8 points or 0.2 percent lower at 4,708.25.
The European markets ended lower Monday on disappointing German factory orders data and weak Eurozone investor confidence. The DAX of
Germany
dropped 0.46 percent, the CAC 40 of
France
fell 0.32 percent and the
FTSE 100 of the
U.K.
declined 0.27 percent.
Crude oil prices rose on Monday after a deal to freeze output from a number of major producers. April WTI oil climbed $1.98 or 5.5 percent to settle at $37.90 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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