Investing.com – Japan equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Retail, Food and Pharmaceutical Industry sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 declined 0.71%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Nikkei 225 were Toshiba Corp. (T:6502), which rose 5.80% or 12.0 points to trade at 219.0 at the close. Dainippon Screen Mfg. Co., Ltd. (T:7735) added 4.95% or 42.0 points to end at 890.0 and Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc. (T:9501) was up 4.56% or 27.0 points to 619.0 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Nippon Express Co., Ltd. (T:9062), which lost 6.23% or 34.0 points to trade at 512.0 in late trade. Mitsumi Electric Co., Ltd. (T:6767) declined 5.08% or 28.0 points to end at 523.0 and Sapporo Holdings Ltd. (T:2501) shed 4.76% or 28.0 points to 560.0.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1425 to 406 and 75 ended unchanged on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Nikkei Volatility, which measures the implied volatility of Nikkei 225 options, was down 3.28% to 22.71.
In commodities trading, Crude oil for May delivery was down 0.89% or 0.34 to $37.98 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in June fell 0.52% or 0.21 to hit $39.84 a barrel, while the June Gold contract rose 0.04% or 0.50 to trade at $1229.10 a troy ounce.
USD/JPY was unchanged 0.00% to 112.43, while EUR/JPY fell 0.10% to 127.34.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.12% at 94.90.