Investing.com – Japan equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Mining, Chemical, Petroleum & Plastic and Insurance sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 declined 1.36%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Nikkei 225 were Softbank Corp. (T:9984), which rose 5.84% or 298.0 points to trade at 5398.0 at the close. Sharp Corp. (T:6753) added 3.31% or 5.0 points to end at 156.0 and Casio Computer Co., Ltd. (T:6952) was up 3.24% or 65.0 points to 2070.0 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Inpex Corp. (T:1605), which lost 6.74% or 65.2 points to trade at 901.7 in late trade. Nisshin Steel Holdings Co., Ltd. (T:5413) declined 5.87% or 73.0 points to end at 1170.0 and MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings (T:8725) shed 5.08% or 153.5 points to 2870.5.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1064 to 708 and 118 ended unchanged on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Nikkei Volatility, which measures the implied volatility of Nikkei 225 options, was up 3.37% to 40.16.
In commodities trading, Crude oil for March delivery was down 0.33% or 0.10 to $28.95 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in April rose 0.00% or 0.01 to hit $32.19 a barrel, while the April Gold contract fell 0.18% or 2.20 to trade at $1206.00 a troy ounce.
USD/JPY was down 0.30% to 113.72, while EUR/JPY fell 0.11% to 126.99.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.14% at 96.75.