Investing.com – Japan equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Paper & Pulp, Railway & Bus and Real Estate sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 fell 0.12%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Nikkei 225 were Panasonic Corp (T:6752), which rose 2.82% or 27.7 points to trade at 1009.0 at the close. IHI Corp. (T:7013) added 2.32% or 59.0 points to end at 2599.0 and Rakuten Inc (T:4755) was up 2.25% or 21.0 points to 956.0 in late trade.
Biggest losers included The Japan Steel Works, Ltd. (T:5631), which lost 2.99% or 70.0 points to trade at 2275.0 in late trade. NTT Data Corp. (T:9613) declined 2.54% or 39.0 points to end at 1496.0 and Yaskawa Electric Corp. (T:6506) shed 2.44% or 100.0 points to 4005.0.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 2221 to 1271 and 268 ended unchanged on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Nikkei Volatility, which measures the implied volatility of Nikkei 225 options, was unchanged 0.00% to 14.02 a new 3-month low.
In commodities trading, Crude oil for January delivery was down 0.52% or 0.30 to $57.81 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in February fell 0.37% or 0.23 to hit $62.78 a barrel, while the February Gold Futures contract rose 0.11% or 1.55 to trade at $1462.35 a troy ounce.
USD/JPY was down 0.09% to 109.45, while EUR/JPY rose 0.01% to 120.49.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.03% at 98.260.