Japan's stock market finished the trading day lower on Friday as sector-level declines in Paper & Pulp, Transport and Communication contributed to a modest pullback in the benchmark. At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 was down 0.08%.
Certain individually listed companies bucked the broader trend. The top performers on the Nikkei 225 were:
- Olympus Corp. (TYO:7733) - rose 6.84% or 98.00 points to close at 1,530.00.
- Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co Ltd (TYO:4506) - added 6.57% or 133.50 points to finish at 2,164.50.
- Shizuoka Financial Group Inc (TYO:5831) - gained 6.49% or 172.00 points to end the day at 2,824.00.
At the other end of the index, several names recorded steep declines:
- Hino Motors, Ltd. (TYO:7205) - fell 5.38% or 22.00 points to close at 387.00.
- Daikin Industries, Ltd. (TYO:6367) - dropped 5.24% or 1,075.00 points to finish at 19,435.00.
- Rohm Ltd (TYO:6963) - declined 4.12% or 139.00 points to end at 3,237.00.
Market breadth on the Tokyo Stock Exchange showed more advancing issues than decliners, with 2,310 stocks rising versus 1,282 that fell, and 211 finishing unchanged.
Measures of expected market turbulence climbed during the session. The Nikkei Volatility, an index that tracks the implied volatility of Nikkei 225 options, rose 18.11% to 44.48.
Commodities and currency moves accompanied equity-market activity. In energy markets, crude oil for May delivery slipped 0.14% or 0.13 to trade at $94.35 a barrel, while Brent oil for June delivery inched up 0.07% or 0.07 to $101.96 a barrel. Precious metals saw gains as the June Gold Futures contract increased 1.72% or 75.95 to trade at $4,484.95 a troy ounce.
In foreign exchange, USD/JPY rose 0.04% to 159.76 and EUR/JPY was up 0.02% to 184.26. The US Dollar Index Futures registered a small uptick of 0.01% to 99.72.
Overall, the session closed with a marginal decline in the Nikkei 225, mixed performance among heavyweights, increased implied volatility for Nikkei options, and modest moves across oil, gold and major currency pairs.