The Nikkei 225 had a nice run the previous two days. The first day of the rally was of course recovering from the prior day’s selling. At any rate, we all know how quickly profit-taking happens in Japan — thus, nothing much to complain about today, in spite of a negative close. U.S. stock exchanges are closed tomorrow, which surely kept a lid on any new buying, especially when considering the employment data release. The Nikkei 225 lost 0.3% to 17,491.42. It would have been more of a bullish close if it held 17,500, but considering it rallied back some 60 points from the start of the afternoon session … Decliners outnumbered advancers 967 x 625 (134 unchanged). Only 10 of 33 TOPIX sectors posted gains. TOPIX 1st section lost 0.6% to 1,720.72.

Lastly, there hasn’t been enough time to get into some of the more interesting and neglected trading in Japan, but JASDAQ lost 0.07% to 84.35 and has one ugly looking one-year chart. After the global stock sell-off in late Feb., it really hasn’t been able to do much and is still struggling even to recover 90.