Investing.com – Japan equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Pharmaceutical Industry, Retail and Power sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 lost 0.31%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Nikkei 225 were Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. (T:5801), which rose 4.19% or 111.0 points to trade at 2762.0 at the close. Fujikura Ltd. (T:5803) added 3.55% or 15.0 points to end at 437.0 and Toshiba Corp. (T:6502) was up 3.47% or 104.0 points to 3100.0 in late trade.
Biggest losers included J.Front Retailing Co., Ltd. (T:3086), which lost 8.96% or 124.0 points to trade at 1260.0 in late trade. Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co Ltd (T:4506) declined 5.54% or 205.0 points to end at 3495.0 and Sapporo Holdings Ltd. (T:2501) shed 4.78% or 115.0 points to 2293.0.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1969 to 1588 and 170 ended unchanged on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Nikkei Volatility, which measures the implied volatility of Nikkei 225 options, was down 11.00% to 27.51.
In commodities trading, Crude oil for February delivery was up 2.85% or 1.27 to $45.88 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in March rose 2.35% or 1.24 to hit $53.97 a barrel, while the February Gold Futures contract fell 0.07% or 0.95 to trade at $1280.15 a troy ounce.
USD/JPY was down 0.47% to 110.48, while EUR/JPY fell 0.26% to 126.61.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.09% at 95.917.