Nomura posts second straight quarterly loss on wholesale segment write-off

By Taiga Uranaka

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nomura Holdings, Japan's biggest brokerage and investment bank, posted on Thursday a second consecutive quarterly loss, hurt by a big write-off in its wholesale segment.

Nomura said in a statement its October-December net loss came in at 95.3 billion yen ($876.64 million), down from a profit of 88 billion yen a year earlier and compared with the 30.9 billion yen average profit estimate of two analysts compiled by Reuters.

The company said it booked an impairment charge of 81 billion yen during the period. It said the impairment is related to Instinet and Lehman Brothers.

Its retail business also suffered a steep fall in profit, as individual investors sat on sidelines amid turmoil in the market.

Global stock markets slumped in December, weighed down by growing worries about the health of the global economy amid an escalating U.S.-China trade spat.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei average suffered its first annual loss in seven years in 2018 after logging a nearly three-decade high in October.

($1 = 108.7100 yen)

(Reporting by Taiga Uranaka; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)