©Reuters. A screen shows stock price data in Tokyo on February 25, 2022. Photo: Kim Kyung Hoon/Reuters.
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s index closed lower on Monday after hitting a two-month high in the previous session as investors posted gains and SoftBank Group fell after its investment arm Vision Fund posted a another big quarterly loss.
The Nikkei index closed down 1.06% at 27,963.47 points, while the broader Topix index fell 1.05% to 1956.90.
The benchmark index closed up 3% on Friday as the Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq also extended their gains in hopes that the Federal Reserve (the US central bank) would take a less aggressive stance on the interest rate hike due to weak inflation reading.
Shares of SoftBank Group fell 12.73%, the biggest one-day decline in more than two-and-a-half years, after the tech investor suffered a hefty loss in investment arm Vision Fund for the third consecutive quarter.
SoftBank shares had the worst impact on the Nikkei index, followed by Olympus shares, which tumbled 10.81% after the medical equipment maker cut its annual operating profit forecast.
Breaking the downtrend, Toto shares rose 6.03% to become the top gainer on the Nikkei index, while cosmetics company Shiseido jumped 5.23%.
(Prepared by Doaa Muhammad for the Arab Bulletin)
