Renewed Consolidation Expected For Japan Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market on Friday ended the two-day slide in which it had given up more than 500 points or 1 percent. The Nikkei 225 now sits just above the 50,830-point plateau although it may head south again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is negative on renewed pessimism over the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses figure to follow that lead.

The Nikkei finished sharply higher on Friday following gains from the financial shares, technology stocks and automobile producers.

For the day, the index rallied 687.73 points or 1.37 percent to finish at 50,836.55 after trading between 50,457.42 and 51,127.69. Among the actives, Nissan Motor accelerated 2.56 percent, while Mazda Motor jumped 2.06 percent, Toyota Motor vaulted 4.82 percent, Honda Motor strengthened 1.78 percent, Softbank Group spiked 3.89 percent, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial expanded 2.48 percent, Mizuho Financial soared 2.69 percent, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial climbed 2.73 percent, Mitsubishi Electric surged 4.13 percent, Sony Group advanced 1.98 percent, Panasonic Holdings skyrocketed 6.91 percent and Hitachi rallied 4.24 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened mixed but quickly turned lower and spent the balance of the session underwater.

The Dow dropped 245.96 points or 0.51 percent to finish at 48,458.05, while the NASDAQ tumbled 398.69 points or 1.69 percent to close at 23,195.17 and the S&P 500 sank 73.59 points or 1.07 percent to end at 6,827.41.

For the week, the Dow jumped 1.1 percent, the S&P 500 slid 0.6 percent and the NASDAQ dove 1.6 percent.

The weakness on Wall Street was fueled by losses on the NASDAQ, which saw heavy selling among the technology stocks on renewed concerns over valuations.

Weak sentiment was also generated by comments from Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee, who explained his decision to vote against cutting interest rates at last week's Fed meeting saying that more inflation data should have been necessary.

Crude oil prices weakened on Friday as traders kept an eye on the latest developments in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and escalating tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela. West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery fell $0.20 or 0.4 percent at $57.40 per barrel.

Closer to home, the Bank of Japan will release its quarterly Tankan Survey for business sentiment this morning. In the previous three months, the large manufacturing index had a score of +14 with an outlook of +12, while large industry capital spending was up 12.5 percent. The large non-manufacturing index was at +34, with an outlook of +28.