TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average logged its worst week in more than a month on Friday, as uncertainty surrounding the Middle East conflict drove oil prices higher and fanned inflation concerns.<\/p>\n
The Nikkei closed 0.3% lower at 66,016.36, with the index losing roughly 4% this week, the biggest since the week ended July 17.<\/p>\n
The broader Topix edged 0.2% higher in the latest session, but still lost 3.1% for the week, its worst showing since early March.<\/p>\n
The U.S. will impose “the toughest sanctions in history” on Iran, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday, as Washington ramped up economic threats in a bid to end the nearly six-month-old war. Crude oil jumped about $2 overnight.<\/p>\n
Japan sources about 95% of its oil imports from the Middle East, with roughly 70% of supplies passing through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Inflation concerns lifted Japanese bond yields, with the 10-year government note’s yield rising 3 basis points to 2.875% on Friday. Yields rise when bond prices fall.<\/p>\n
“Profit-taking is likely heading into the weekend with oil prices and bond yields elevated amid the uncertain situation in the Middle East,” said Maki Sawada, a strategist at Nomura Securities.<\/p>\n
Shares of heavily weighted Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing tumbled 3.6%, making it one of the biggest drags in the Nikkei.<\/p>\n
AI-focused startup investor SoftBank Group fell 2.5%.<\/p>\n
Despite the index’s decline, gainers outnumbered losers in the Nikkei, with 135 of its 225 constituents advancing, 86 declining and four closing unchanged.<\/p>\n
Shipping was the top performer among the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s 33 industry groups, rallying 4.9% on expectations for higher freight rates, with the crucial Strait of Hormuz shipping route remaining effectively closed.<\/p>\n
Mining, a category that includes oil explorers, rose 2.2%, followed by oil and coal, up 2.1%. – Reuters\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average logged its worst week in more than a month on Friday, as uncertainty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[217,215,4193,8,214,18126,216,726,10173,4205,1687,50387,14570,446,1704],"class_list":["post-78604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-business-of-japan","tag-inflation-concerns","tag-japan","tag-japans-business","tag-japanese-bond-yields","tag-japanese-business","tag-markets","tag-middle-east-conflict","tag-nikkei","tag-oil-prices","tag-sanctions-on-iran","tag-softbank-group","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-uniqlo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}