Weakness in the consumer finance and securities sectors sent the Tokyo equities markets lower on Wednesday. The Nikkei 225 dropped 0.5 percent to 16,699.30, while the Topix index fell 0.6 percent to 1,653.38. There were losses in a number of other sectors as well.
In the telecommunications sector, NTT DoCoMo was down 2.2 percent to ¥180,000. Softbank dropped 2.5 percent to ¥2,590. The declines came as investors were wary of a possible price war among mobile phone carriers. KDDI, on the other hand, added 1 percent to ¥735,000 after declines on Tuesday.
The electronics sector saw declines as well, with NEC 6 percent lower to ¥639 on the announcement that it will abandon US accounting standards and use Japanese rules, which are less demanding, instead. The move came after it did not file its report for the quarter ending in March on time with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Consumer finance companies were hurt when Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party dropped a plan that would have let the lenders charge more than the maximum allowable interest on some loans. Acom dropped 4.9 percent to ¥4,490, while Takefuji fell 5 percent to ¥4,520 and Aiful was 7.2 percent lower to ¥4,140.
The securities sector was 3.2 percent lower as a whole, with Nomura dropping 2.5 percent to ¥2,165 as investors worried about what its quarterly report would reveal. Their fears were borne out when the securities house’s report showed that profits were down by 28.5 percent in its second quarter. Daiwa Securities, meanwhile, fell 4.1 percent to ¥1,381.