Nikkei 225 closes lower by 4.51% at 18,664.60

A rough day for Japanese stocks as Asian equities mostly fall

Nikkei 26-03

The Nikkei is the biggest loser in the region and Japanese stocks are not helped by the fall in SoftBank shares today, after Moody’s downgraded the company’s rating further from Ba1 to Ba3 yesterday – despite the company calling the move as “biased and mistaken”.
The Hang Seng is down by 0.8% while the Shanghai Composite is down by 0.4%, although there are decent gains in Australia (+2.3%) and India (+3.3%) on the day.
That said, with US futures sitting just over 1% lower currently, it is setting up a softer risk tone ahead of European morning trade. As such, risk/commodity currencies are on the back foot with AUD/USD down to 0.5915 currently – lower by 0.7% today.
Meanwhile, USD/JPY is also sitting lower as the yen is the best performing major currency amid a further drop in bond yields. The pair is currently trading at 110.60.