TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese stock market is trading weak on Monday with escalating political tensions in Ukraine and the resultant strength of the yen triggering some heavy selling across the board.
Besides information technology stocks and other export-oriented issues, shares from steel, non-ferrous metals, pharmaceutical, banking and automobile sections are also mostly trading sharply lower.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index, which plunged to 14,443.7, is currently down 347.5 points or 2.3 percent at 14,493.6.
The mood is so bearish that just three stocks from the 225-stock strong Nikkei index are currently up in positive territory. While Nissan Chemical Industries and Inpex Corp. are up with modest gains, JX Holdings is up slightly over the unchanged line.
Astellas Pharma is down nearly 6 percent. Alps Electric, Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, JTEKT Corp., Furukawa Electric, Yahoo Japan, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Mazda Motor, Sumco Corp., Nippon Sheet Glass and Hino Motors are all trading lower by over 4 percent.
Advantest Corp. (ATE), Sharp Corp., Fujikura, Shionogi, Japan Tobacco, Suzuki Motor and Pioneer Corp. are down 3 to 4 percent.
Shizuoka Bank, Chiba Bank, Shinsei Bank, Olympus Corp., Sony Corp. (SNE), Fujitsu, JFE Holdings, Mitsubishi Motors, Chubu Electric Power and Sumitomo Chemical are also trading sharply lower.
On the economic front, capital spending in Japan was up 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, the Ministry of Finance said on Monday. That was shy of forecasts for a 4.9 percent gain following the 1.5 percent increase in the previous three months.
Excluding software, capex also was up 2.8 percent - missing expectations for 4.6 percent but still up from 2.6 percent in Q3.
Company profits surged 26.6 percent on year, accelerating from 24.1 percent in the third quarter - while company sales were up 3.8 percent after adding 0.8 percent in Q3.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar traded around 101.35 yen in early deals, down from Friday's close of 101.65 yen.
Among other markets in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan are trading notably lower, while New Zealand and Shanghai are down marginally.
On Wall Street, stocks ended mixed on Friday, after seeing considerable volatility in the latter part of the session. A positive reaction to a slew of U.S. economic data including a report showig an unexpected acceleration in the pace of Chicago-area business activity triggered some strong buying early on in the session.
While the major averages closed well off their intraday highs, the S&P 500 still climbed 5.2 points or 0.3 percent to a new record closing high of 1,859.5. The Dow rose 49.1 points or 0.3 percent to 16,321.7, while the Nasdaq ended down 10.8 points or 0.3 percent at 4,308.1.
Major European markets too ended mixed on Friday. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index closed just below the unchanged line, the German DAX index jumped 1.1 percent and the French CAC 40 index gained 0.3 percent.
U.S. crude oil ended higher on Friday, on some encouraging economic data from the U.S. with consumer sentiment rising and a better-than-expected Chicago business activity index, offsetting a drop in U.S. gross domestic product for the fourth quarter of 2913.
Nonetheless, gains were somewhat capped by the ongoing geopolitical tensions in Ukraine, with investors weighing the possible Russian response to the volatile situation unfolding in the Crimea region of the beleaguered country.
Crude for April delivery ended up $0.19 or 0.2 percent at $102.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX