Japan Nikkei falls 2% on rising COVID-19 cases

Japan share market finished lower fourth straight session on Wednesday, 24 March 2021, as investors remained wary about a slowdown in the global economic recovery from the pandemic amid spikes in coronavirus cases in major economies, including Germany, France and Italy.

At closing bell, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average declined 590.40 points, or 2.04%, to 28,405.52. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange dropped 42.90 points, or 2.18%, to 1,928.58.

All 33 industry category of Topix index retreated, with Air Transportation, Mining, Marine Transportation, Iron & Steel, Banks, Nonferrous Metals, Oil & Coal Products, Real Estate, and Securities & Commodities Futures issues being notable losers.

The Tokyo market commenced trading with risk off selloff due to growing concerns about a slowdown in the global economic recovery from the pandemic amid a resurgence of COVID-19 cases in Europe which have led to lockdowns being extended in Germany, France and Italy. In Europe, authorities continue to struggle with the virus as the region battles a third Covid wave.

Many regions globally are seeing an increase in new Covid-19 cases as highly contagious variants continue to spread, the World Health Organization said earlier this week.

Traders largely shrugged minutes from the Bank of Japan's meeting on January 20 and 21 which revealed that members are ready to maintain stimulus as long as necessary.

Energy shares declined as Germany extended its lockdown measures by another month and imposed several new restrictions. Inpex Corp. lost 5.7% and Japan Petroleum lost 5.5%.

Nikon Corp. surged 6.4% on buzz it would benefit from U.S. semiconductor maker Intel's move to greatly expand its advanced chip manufacturing capacity. Tokyo Electron climbed 5.1%.

ECONOMIC NEWS: Japan Manufacturing PMI Expands Further In February- Japan manufacturing sector continued to expand in March with a manufacturing PMI score of 52.0, the latest survey from Jibun Bank showed on Wednesday. That's up from 51.4 in February and it moves further above the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction. Output growth softened slightly, although new orders expanded at their fastest pace since October 2018. But job shedding persisted and sentiment eased to a nine-month low. Japan's services PMI came in at 46.5, up from 45.8 in February, while the composite index had a score of 48.3 - up from 48.2 in the previous month.

CURRENCY NEWS: The Japanese yen traded at 108.59 per dollar, as compared to levels around 108.9 against the greenback seen earlier this week.

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