TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese stock market is modestly lower on Thursday following the lackluster cues overnight from Wall Street and as investors remained cautious ahead of the Bank of Japan's monetary policy decision due later in the day.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is declining 23.13 points or 0.10 percent to 23,911.30, after touching a low of 23,899.52 in early trades. Japanese shares declined on Wednesday.
Market heavyweight SoftBank Group Corp. is advancing more than 1 percent, while Fast Retailing is down 0.6 percent.
The major exporters are mostly higher on a weaker yen. Mitsubishi Electric is advancing almost 1 percent, Sony is rising 0.6 percent and Panasonic is adding 0.3 percent, while Canon is edging down 0.1 percent.
Among auto stocks, Toyota Motor is higher by 0.6 percent while Honda Motor is declining 0.5 percent. In the oil sector, Inpex and Japan Petroleum are adding almost 1 percent each even as crude oil prices ended flat overnight.
In the tech space, Advantest is higher by more than 2 percent, while Tokyo Electron is losing 0.6 percent.
Among the other major gainers, Hitachi is gaining more than 4 percent, while Suzuki Motor and Sumco Corp. are higher by more than 2 percent each.
Hitachi said Wednesday it will sell a 51 percent stake in its chemicals unit Hitachi Chemical to Showa Denko for 494 billion yen and its diagnostic imaging business to Fujifilm Holdings for 179 billion yen.
On the flip side, Isuzu Motors is losing almost 4 percent, while Toyo Seikan Group, Pacific Metals and Olympus Corp. are declining more than 2 percent each.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the upper 109 yen-range on Thursday.
On Wall Street, stocks closed a lackluster session almost unchanged on Wednesday as the news the U.S. and China have agreed on a phase one trade deal helped maintain positive sentiment, but traders seem reluctant to make significant moves. Overall trading activity remained light throughout the day, with a lack of major U.S. economic data keeping some traders on the sidelines.
While the Nasdaq inched up 4.38 points or 0.1 percent to 8,827.73, the Dow dipped 27.88 points or 0.1 percent to 28,239.28 and the S&P 500 edged down 1.38 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 3,191.14.
The major European markets also ended mixed on Wednesday. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index crept up by 0.2 percent, the French CAC 40 Index edged down by 0.2 percent and the German DAX Index fell by 0.5 percent.
Crude oil futures ended little changed on Wednesday after data from Energy Information Administration or EIA showed a much smaller than expected decline in crude stockpiles in the U.S. last week. WTI crude for January ended $0.01 down at $60.93 a barrel.
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