The Nikkei, the main index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, lost 1.77% today due to fears of a rate hike and the monetary tightening of the European central banks. The Nikkei, which brings together the 225 most representative titles on the market, advanced 468.20 points, to 25,963.00 integers. The Topix, which includes the firms in the main section, those with the largest capitalization, lost 1.71% or 31.91 points, to stand at 1,835.90 units.
The Tokyo floor opened strongly lower, dragged down by concerns about the European economic outlook, after the European Central Bank (ECB) confirmed its plans to raise interest rates by 0.25% next month, its first rate hike in eleven years.
The ECB decided this Wednesday in an emergency meeting to also speed up the creation of an instrument to prevent the fragmentation of the eurozone, which would arise from an excessive disparity between the costs of the debt of different countries, as well as to reinvest the bonds that mature its extinct program due to the pandemic to buy debt from countries whose risk is skyrocketing.
The Japanese market cut some losses after the Bank of Japan (BoJ) announced this Friday that it will maintain its monetary policy based on short-term negative rates, keeping distances from its global counterparts despite the acceleration of inflation, and said that it will sharpen their surveillance of the foreign exchange market.
The precision instruments, steel and transportation equipment sectors led the day’s losses.
The most traded company of the day was the telecommunications and investment group Softbank, which fell 4.24%, followed by the manufacturer of analysis equipment for semiconductors Lasertec, which lost 8.19%.
On the other side of the coin, the textile company Fast Retailing, owner of the clothing store chain Uniqlo, rose 0.54%. In the first section, 351 stocks advanced versus 1,448 that fell and 39 that finished unchanged.