Investing.com – Japan equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Gas & Water, Precision Instruments and Retail sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 lost 0.52%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Nikkei 225 were Familymart Ltd (T:8028), which rose 2.35% or 180.0 points to trade at 7850.0 at the close. The Shizuoka Bank, Ltd. (T:8355) added 2.35% or 27.0 points to end at 1174.0 and Konami Corp. (T:9766) was up 2.27% or 140.0 points to 6310.0 in late trade.
Biggest losers included SUMCO Corp. (T:3436), which lost 5.22% or 150.0 points to trade at 2726.0 in late trade. DeNA Co Ltd (T:2432) declined 3.98% or 96.0 points to end at 2319.0 and Showa Denko K.K. (T:4004) shed 3.79% or 155.0 points to 3935.0.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1889 to 1447 and 207 ended unchanged on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Nikkei Volatility, which measures the implied volatility of Nikkei 225 options, was down 3.53% to 14.75 a new 1-month low.
In commodities trading, Crude oil for January delivery was up 0.79% or 0.45 to $57.59 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in February rose 1.09% or 0.69 to hit $64.03 a barrel, while the February Gold Futures contract rose 0.22% or 2.70 to trade at $1244.40 a troy ounce.
USD/JPY was down 0.12% to 113.41, while EUR/JPY fell 0.09% to 133.21.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.05% at 94.01.