LOS ANGELES: Japanese stocks wilted at the Thursday open under selling heat from the pullback in U.S. markets, including a 2.4% fall for the Nasdaq.
About 40 minutes into the session, the Nikkei Stock Average NIK, -1.39% was 1% weaker, as was the broader Topix, erasing mild gains from a day ealier. Although the yen escaped a bout of dollar weakness with relatively little change (dollar USDJPY, -0.48% buying ¥119.46 vs. ¥119.65 at the previous Tokyo stock close), the scope of losses overnight on Wall Street was enough to deliver a hard slap to some of Japan’s best-known names: Sony Corp. 6758, -3.06% SNE, -3.19% fell 3%, Fujitsu Ltd. 6702, -2.85% FJTSY, +2.13% dropped 2.8%, Nissan Motor Co. 7201, -1.87% NSANY, +0.65% retreated 1.7%, and Panasonic Corp. 6752, -1.23% PCRFF, -2.63% softened by 1%. Shares of Sharp Corp. 6753, -2.01% SHCAF, +1.38% lost 2%, even as a Nikkei news report said the struggling electronics major planned to cut management salaries by 5% and wages for other workers by 2%. Nintendo Co. 7974, -2.78% NTDOF, +1.42% managed to contain its loss to 0.5% after releasing some details on its planned next-generation videogame console, called the NX. Likewise, telecom KDDI Corp. 9433, +0.54% KDDIF, -2.53% escaped with a mere 0.1% loss, possibly helped by news it would be the first to launch the new Butterfly 3 handset from Taiwan’s HTC Corp. 2498, -0.35% HTCXF, +0.00% Bucking the downtrend, however, a surge for oil futures
— which accelerated after news broke that Saudi Arabia and its allies had intervened in Yemen’s civil war — juiced the energy stocks. Among them, Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. 1662, +3.42% JPTXF, -21.98% rose 1.9%, JX Holdings Inc. 5020, +1.83% JXHGF, +2.95% added 1%, and Inpex Corp. 1605, +2.75% IPXHY, -1.23% rose 0.4%.
