The Nikkei average index closed down 556 points or 1.1%, Kioxia rose 9%

Japanese stocks were slightly weak, with the market focusing on China's rare earth exports to Japan and their impact on Japanese corporate earnings. After a two-day cumulative rise of 2,000 points, the Nikkei average index experienced a pullback. The index opened down 373 points, with the early market decline narrowing to 113 points, reaching a high of 52,404 points. In the afternoon, it fell by 687 points, hitting a low of 51,830 points, closing down 556 points or 1.1% at 51,961 points.

In the artificial intelligence and semiconductor sectors, SoftBank (9984.JP) fell 1.4%, Renesas Electronics (6920.JP) and Advantest (6857.JP) dropped 2% and 4.4%, while Discus (6146.JP) and Tokyo Electron (8035.JP) rose 2.7% and 2.2%. Memory chip stock Kioxia (285A.JP) increased by 9.4%. In the wire sector, Furukawa Electric (5801.JP) and Fujikura (5803.JP) fell 3.9% and 1.4%, while Sumitomo Electric (5802.JP) rose 1.8%.

In the heavy industry sector, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (7011.JP) and Kawasaki Heavy Industries (7012.JP) fell 2.3% and 2.1%, while electric power stock Tokyo Electric Power Company (9501.JP) dropped 7.3%. Other stocks included Fast Retailing (9983.JP) and Toyota (7203.JP) down 2.7%, Hitachi (6501.JP) and Sony (6758.JP) down 3.3%, Panasonic (6752.JP), Itochu (8001.JP), and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (8316.JP) down 2% to 2.2%, Nintendo (7974.JP) and Ryohin Keikaku (7453.JP) down over 4%, while Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (6269.JP) rose 7.1%.

The US dollar against the Japanese yen recently fell 0.15% to 156.38