Japanese Market Slightly Lower

The Japanese stock market is slightly lower on Wednesday, giving up some of the gains in the previous three sessions, with the Nikkei 225 staying below the 27,300 level, following the mostly negative cues from global markets overnight, as traders indulged in profit taking after the recent rally amid optimism the US Fed will scale down the pace of its interest rate hikes.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 9.94 points or 0.04 percent at 27,289.48, after hitting a low of 27,175.88 earlier. Japanese stocks ended sharply higher on Tuesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is flat, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging up 0.5 percent. Among automakers, Honda is flat, while Toyota is edging down 0.3 percent.

In the tech space, Screen Holdings and Tokyo Electron are edging down 0.2 percent each, while Advantest is losing almost 2 percent.