Major Asian markets exhibited positive cues today, with the exception of Japan’s Nikkei. South Korea’s Kospi index rose 1.55 percent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.57 percent, China’s Shanghai Composite gained 0.47 percent, and Singapore’s Straits Times Index advanced 0.44 percent. However, Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed with a loss of 0.44 percent.
Major European indices were trading higher in the intra-day trade. London’s FTSE 100 jumped pver 1.1 per cent, France’s CAC rose 0.58 per cent and Germany’s DAX added 0.1, when reports last came in.
The Japanese market is trading notably lower on Thursday, reversing some of the gains in the previous two sessions, despite the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 is falling to near the 39,600 level, with weakness in exporter stocks and a mixed performance in most other sectors.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index closed the morning session at 39,610.61, down 210.67 points or 0.53 percent, after hitting a low of 39,547.26 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly higher on Wednesday.
Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining more than 1 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging down 0.3 percent. Among automakers, Toyota is edging down 0.5 percent, while Honda is edging up 0.1 percent.
In the tech space, Advantest is edging up 0.5 percent, while Tokyo Electron is losing more than 1 percent and Screen Holdings is declining almost 1 percent.
In the banking sector, Mizuho Financial is edging up 0.4 percent, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is losing almost 1 percent and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is edging down 0.2 percent.
Among the major exporters, Sony is losing almost 3 percent, Canon is declining more than 2 percent, Panasonic is slipping more than 1 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is down almost 1 percent.