Investing.com – Japan equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Chemical, Petroleum & Plastic, Shipbuilding and Finance & Investment sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 lost 1.61%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Nikkei 225 were Nippon Suisan Kaisha, Ltd. (T:1332), which rose 3.41% or 28.0 points to trade at 849.0 at the close. Fukuoka Financial Group, Inc. (T:8354) added 0.86% or 21.0 points to end at 2473.0 and Advantest Corp. (T:6857) was up 0.72% or 18.0 points to 2522.0 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding (T:7003), which lost 7.88% or 90.0 points to trade at 1052.0 in late trade. Matsui Securities Co., Ltd. (T:8628) declined 4.85% or 53.0 points to end at 1039.0 and Takara Holdings Inc. (T:2531) shed 4.56% or 61.0 points to 1276.0.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 2870 to 693 and 134 ended unchanged on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Nikkei Volatility, which measures the implied volatility of Nikkei 225 options, was down 4.18% to 17.20.
In commodities trading, Crude oil for May delivery was down 0.77% or 0.46 to $58.95 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in June fell 0.59% or 0.40 to hit $66.84 a barrel, while the June Gold Futures contract fell 0.27% or 3.55 to trade at $1313.35 a troy ounce.
USD/JPY was down 0.34% to 110.14, while EUR/JPY fell 0.28% to 123.87.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.26% at 96.537.