Japan Market stumbles 1.8%

Japan share market finished session steep lower on Friday, 17 December 2021, as investors locked in gains in the previous two sessions on following the broadly negative cues overnight from Wall Street. Sentiment was also weighed down amid concerns about the impact of Omicron variant after several countries across the world announced stricter restrictions on movements to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which is now spread to more than 77 countries.

At closing bell, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average stumbled 520.64 points, or 1.79%, to 28,545.68. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange dropped 28.61 points, or 1.42%, to 1,984.47.

Total 29 of 33 Topix industry groups ended lower, with bottom performing issues were Precision Instruments (down 3.4%), Services (down 3%), Metal Products (down 2.6%), Electric Appliances (down 1.8%), Insurance (down 1.8%), and Pharmaceutical (up 1.7%).

Toshiba share declined 1.9% after it laid out measures to improve corporate governance and relationships with shareholders.

Sony Group shares dropped after its music division confirmed that Bruce Springsteen has sold his music rights to Sony, a deal reportedly worth half a billion dollars.

Takeda Pharmaceutical shares climbed 0.1% after the company said it has submitted an approval request for Novavax's Covid-19 vaccine to the Japanese health ministry.

ECONOMIC NEWS: The Bank of Japan (BOJ) on Friday announced its decision to scale back Covid-19 funding support for large companies while maintaining its monetary policy and support for small and midsize firms. The BOJ decided on a two-day policy-setting meeting to reduce its buying of commercial paper and corporate bonds issued by large firms, but retain a program supporting small and midsize firms until September. In addition, the Japanese central bank will continue to set short-term interest rates at minus 0.1% while guiding 10-year Japanese government bond yields around zero%, as its 2% inflation target is still far off.

CURRENCY NEWS: The Japanese yen strengthened from above 114 earlier in the week to 113.60 against the greenback.

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