Japan shares lower at close of trade; Nikkei 225 down 0.52%

Investing.com – Japan equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Gas & Water , Precision Instruments and Retail sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 lost 0.52%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Nikkei 225 were Familymart Ltd (T: 8028 ), which rose 2.35% or 180.0 points to trade at 7850.0 at the close. The Shizuoka Bank, Ltd. (T: 8355 ) added 2.35% or 27.0 points to end at 1174.0 and Konami Corp. (T: 9766 ) was up 2.27% or 140.0 points to 6310.0 in late trade.

Biggest losers included SUMCO Corp. (T: 3436 ), which lost 5.22% or 150.0 points to trade at 2726.0 in late trade. DeNA Co Ltd (T: 2432 ) declined 3.98% or 96.0 points to end at 2319.0 and Showa Denko K.K. (T: 4004 ) shed 3.79% or 155.0 points to 3935.0.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1889 to 1447 and 207 ended unchanged on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The Nikkei Volatility , which measures the implied volatility of Nikkei 225 options, was down 3.53% to 14.75 a new 1-month low.

In commodities trading, Crude oil for January delivery was up 0.79% or 0.45 to $57.59 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in February rose 1.09% or 0.69 to hit $64.03 a barrel, while the February Gold Futures contract rose 0.22% or 2.70 to trade at $1244.40 a troy ounce.

USD/JPY was down 0.12% to 113.41, while EUR/JPY fell 0.09% to 133.21.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.05% at 94.01.