Amidst escalating tensions in the Middle East, Asian markets experienced a significant downturn on Friday, marked by Japan’s Nikkei plummeting 3.5% due to pronounced selling pressure on semiconductor-related stocks and other major market players.
The geopolitical unease in the Middle East cast a shadow over investor sentiment across the Asian region, further exacerbated by a notable decline in U.S. futures.
Fueling concerns, oil prices surged by approximately $3 following reports from the state-run IRNA news agency indicating that Iran had deployed air defense batteries in response to alleged explosions near Isfahan early Friday morning.
The Nikkei 225, Japan’s primary stock index, recorded a sharp decline of 3.51%, closing at 36,742.05 points.
Lasertec, a prominent semiconductor equipment supplier, emerged as the top loser, experiencing a significant drop of 9.7% during morning trading. Concurrently, other major tech-related companies also witnessed substantial losses, with Renesas shedding 7.3%, Tokyo Electron sliding by 7.8%, and Sony Group Corp. declining by 3.3%. Additionally, Toyota Motor Corp registered a decline of 3.7%.
In economic indicators, Japan’s headline inflation rate in March decelerated to 2.7%, while the core-core index, excluding volatile fresh food and energy prices, moderated to 2.9%. This marked the first instance since November 2022 that the index fell below the 3% threshold.
The yen exhibited slight strength against the U.S. dollar, with the latter depreciating to 153.80 Japanese yen from 154.64 yen.
