Investing.com – Japan equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Paper & Pulp, Railway & Bus and Real Estate sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 declined 0.45%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Nikkei 225 were Panasonic Corp (T:6752), which rose 2.83% or 30.0 points to trade at 1088.5 at the close. Nippon Meat Packers, Inc. (T:2282) added 2.56% or 120.0 points to end at 4800.0 and Olympus Corp. (T:7733) was up 2.28% or 39.5 points to 1773.0 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Toho Co., Ltd. (T:9602), which lost 5.71% or 260.0 points to trade at 4290.0 in late trade. Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd. (T:5713) declined 3.76% or 134.0 points to end at 3429.0 and Pacific Metals Co., Ltd. (T:5541) shed 3.41% or 88.0 points to 2494.0.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1953 to 1593 and 243 ended unchanged on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Nikkei Volatility, which measures the implied volatility of Nikkei 225 options, was unchanged 0.00% to 14.16.
In commodities trading, Crude oil for February delivery was down 0.19% or 0.11 to $58.12 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in March fell 0.19% or 0.12 to hit $64.37 a barrel, while the February Gold Futures contract rose 0.48% or 7.45 to trade at $1552.05 a troy ounce.
USD/JPY was down 0.04% to 109.92, while EUR/JPY fell 0.01% to 122.38.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.01% at 97.085.