Investing.com – Japan equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Manufacturing, Chemical, Petroleum & Plastic and Paper & Pulp sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 declined 0.59%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Nikkei 225 were Softbank Group Corp. (T:9984), which rose 17.73% or 1500.0 points to trade at 9962.0 at the close. Mazda Motor Corp (T:7261) added 6.38% or 78.0 points to end at 1300.0 and Subaru Corp (T:7270) was up 6.01% or 153.0 points to 2697.5 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp (T:4188), which lost 6.13% or 55.3 points to trade at 846.5 in late trade. Unitika, Ltd. (T:3103) declined 5.94% or 31.0 points to end at 491.0 and Marui Group Co., Ltd. (T:8252) shed 5.62% or 120.0 points to 2015.0.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 2542 to 956 and 186 ended unchanged on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Nikkei Volatility, which measures the implied volatility of Nikkei 225 options, was up 4.53% to 17.30.
In commodities trading, Crude oil for March delivery was down 0.50% or 0.27 to $53.74 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in April fell 0.62% or 0.39 to hit $62.30 a barrel, while the April Gold Futures contract fell 0.50% or 6.55 to trade at $1307.85 a troy ounce.
USD/JPY was up 0.05% to 110.02, while EUR/JPY fell 0.01% to 124.89.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.15% at 96.297.