A 4-Month Fall In Tokyo
Japanese equities recorded the biggest losses of the last four months on Thursday in the wake of disappointing data on US growth and weak financial results from companies such as Honda Motor Company Ltd (NYSE:HMC).
The Nikkei fell by 2.7% to 19,520.21 points, while TOPIX closed with a drop of 2.1% at 1592.79 points.
The unexpectedly weak data on the US GDP, which were published yesterday, led investors to withdraw profits. Note that Topix has recorded gains of over 10% since the beginning of the year.
The investment climate was impacted negatively by the lower than expected results that were announced by Japanese companies. On the board, the share of Honda Motor fell by 6.7%, while the share of NTT DOCOMO Inc (NYSE:DCM) closed at -6.1%.
Euromarkets Started With A Fall
The European indices move with a decline for a third consecutive session with the export sector to record significant losses today after the new rise of euro. Also, the market is in a process of appraising the imports data for the first quarter of the year.
The British index FTSE 100 fell by 0.06% to 6,942 points, the German DAX recorded losses of 0.11% at 11,420 points and the French CAC 40 moved downwards by 0.35% to 5,022 points.
STOXX 600 index fell by 0.33% to 395.97 points.
On the board, Nokia Oyj (HEL:NOK1V) fell by 12.4%, after the worse than expected data that were released for the first quarter of the year. The net profit of the Finnish company for the quarter amounted to 177 million euros or 0.05 euros per share.
Royal Bank of Scotland (LONDON:RBS) made losses of 1.9%, as the first quarter of the year it recorded losses of 446 million pounds mainly because of the fines imposed for its’ tactics in the foreign exchange market.
Also, STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM)is at -6.8% after announcing that its profit and revenue will hover below the estimations this year because of the falling demand.