The Nikkei finished 4.5% down to 18,065.41 points, while the Topix dropped 3.7% to 1,351.08 points.
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The Tokyo Stock Exchange sharply widened its losses on Wednesday, its third straight in the red, against a background of fears of an imminent containment of the capital of Japan, hitherto relatively unaffected by the epidemic.
Star index Nikkei finished 4.5% down to 18,065.41 points, while broad Topix dropped 3.7% to 1,351.08 points.
Depression came in from the first exchanges, with the sharp fall in Wall Street the day before and the drop in confidence by large Japanese manufacturing companies, at their lowest since March 2013, according to the last quarterly Tankan survey by the Bank of Japan (BoJ) published Wednesday.
Investors in Japan have also been worried for several days about a possible imminent containment of Tokyo, which would finish rolling the economy of the country, where so far the number of cases of contamination with the new coronavirus has not exploded like in Europe or the United States.
“If containment is announced (in Tokyo, editor’s note), it will have a huge impact on the market,” warned Shinichi Yamamoto, a broker at Okasan Securities interviewed by AFP.
At the end of the session, the drop in indices on the American “futures” added yet another dose of anxiety to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, accelerating sales orders.
On the side of values
All sectors of Nikkei have ended up in the red, especially industry, materials, new technologies and distribution.
FAST RETAILING IN SUFFERING
The title Fast Retailing (Uniqlo) fell 5.07% to 41,950 yen, as the Japanese ready-to-wear giant would be one of the big victims of a containment in the Tokyo region. Similarly, the cosmetics groups Shiseido and Kao dropped 4.43% to 6,099 yen and 6.26% to 8,277 yen respectively.
FUJIFILM RESISTED
Contrary to the market trend, Fujifilm ended stable (-0.03% at 5,437 yen). The group has confirmed that it has started a clinical trial in Japan to test the effectiveness of its antiviral drug Avigan (favipiravir) against Covid-19, which is also raising hopes in other countries.
On the currency and oil side
The yen was almost stable against the dollar, which was worth 107.50 yen around 06:45 GMT, against 107.54 yen Tuesday at 21:00 GMT.
The Japanese currency appreciated slightly against the euro, which traded for 118.16 yen against 118.63 yen the day before.
The European currency fell against the dollar, at the rate of one euro for 1.0990 dollars against 1.1031 dollars Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. GMT.
Oil prices, depressed by the double impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which is causing world demand for black gold to drop and the price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, were falling: at 6.35 GMT per barrel of American crude WTI yielded 1.46% to 20.18 dollars while the barrel of Brent London lost 3.61% to 25.40 dollars.
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