Japan: Nikkei tumbles 2.1%

Japan stocks declined for third straight session on Wednesday, 29 September 2021, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 and broader Topix indexes settling deeply in negative terrain. The risk-off selloff triggered as sentiment dampened by overnight declines on Wall Street due to heightened inflation woes, concerns about rising bond yields and the U.S. debt-ceiling row.

Investors were also focused on the outcome of the Japanese ruling party leadership election. Shortly after the closing bell, Fumio Kishida won the ruling Liberal Democratic Party leadership vote, setting him on course to become the next prime minister. Kono's victory was seen positive for renewable energy firms and digitisation-related stocks and negative for electric power companies.

At closing bell, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average stumbled 639.67 points, or 2.12%, to 29,544.29. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange retreated 43.48 points, or 2.09%, to 2,038.29.

Trading volume turnover on the main section stood at 1.60 billion shares worth 3.86 trillion yen, as compared yesterday's volume turnover of 1.51 billion shares worth 3.81 trillion yen.

Total 32 of 33 industry groups ended lower along with the Topix, with bottom performing issues were Precision Instruments (down 3.1%), Electric Appliances (down 3.1%), Banks (down 3%), Insurance (down 2.9%), Machinery (down 2.8%), Securities & Commodities Futures (down 2.8%), and Iron & Steel (down 2.4%).

Shares of technology companies faced strong selling pressure, with Screen Holdings, Tokyo Electron and Advantest plummeting 4-6%.

Shares of electric appliance companies fell. Sony Group tanked 4.4%, Panasonic skidded 3.4%, and Toshiba sagged 2.6%.

Japan Post shares plunged 5.7% amid reports that the government may kick off the process to sell about 950 billion yen shares in the company as early as this week.

Bucking the downward trend, travel-related shares advanced on hopes of a surge in demand, as the government plans to lift a coronavirus state of emergency in all regions on Thursday for the first time in nearly six months. Online travel agency AirTrip surged 5.6%.

CURRENCY NEWS: The U.S. dollar was closed in the lower 111 yen range, after briefly edging up to the upper 111 yen range, as the unit was bought after overnight advances in U.S. Treasury yields fueled expectations of a wider interest rate gap between the United States and Japan. The Japanese yen traded at 111.21 per dollar, stronger than an earlier low of 111.68 seen against the greenback.

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