Nikkei rises as Wall St rebounds after bruising sell-off; Toyota jumps

Tokyo stocks attracted hefty buybacks from the outset of Wednesday’s trading, pushing up the Nikkei average by more than 740 points by midmorning. South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.5 percent to 2,407.62.

Toyota, which is to announce earnings later Tuesday, was down 3.14 percent at 7,265 yen while Canon fell 3.15 percent to 4,112 yen. Yields move inversely to prices – so as investors sell bonds, yields rise, and vice versa.

The decline was the largest in percentage terms for the Dow since August 2011, when markets dropped in the aftermath of “Black Monday” – the day Standard & Poor’s downgraded its credit rating of the US.

Many investors anxious that inflation would send borrowing rates up and sap corporate profits, stock prices and the US economy. But in an example of the bumpy ride Wall Street is on Tuesday, the index quickly gave up some gains was up 341 points at 24,687.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 2.3 percent at 24,912.77.

The slide Monday brought the Dow back just below 25,000 points, a level it first crossed a month ago.

Wells Fargo plunged 8 percent after the Federal Reserve hit the bank with new sanctions over a scandal that involved opening millions of phony consumer accounts.

CNOOC, PetroChina and Sinopec sank between two and three percent in Hong Kong, while Inpex bombed nearly four percent in Tokyo and Woodside Petroleum was off 2.6 percent in Sydney.

Japan’s benchmarks advanced, though pulled back from the session’s highs, as S&P 500 Index futures declined and Chinese shares dropped, suggesting the recovery isn’t yet on solid ground.

Japan’s Nikkei dropped 4.6 per cent.

Prices for such commodities as oil and aluminum have also increased in recent months, raising costs for gas, jet fuel and cars. That represented a 69 percent fall from its record high of US$19,666, touched on December 17. There hasn’t been one in two years, and by many measures stocks have been looking expensive.

The growing concerns about the pace of interest rate hikes came after U.S.jobs data on Friday showed wages were growing at their fastest pace since 2009.

He added: “The fall in the S&P 500 was startling, but it merely returned the index to its early December level – it has given up the gains only of the past nine weeks”.

Shares across Asia have taken a heavy beating after New York’s Dow Jones index suffered its biggest drop in six-and-a-half years. The Nasdaq composite lost 14 points, or 0.2 percent, to 7,225.

USA stocks went on another bumpy ride on Wall Street, dropping sharply in early trading before recovering their losses by lunch time.

Those sharp falls came after a brutal trading session in US markets on Monday.

Commodity markets remained gloomy, with oil and industrial metals’ prices all falling, as the year’s stellar start for risk assets rapidly soured.

Tech firms were hit early on after Apple and Google parent Alphabet lost four percent following disappointing earnings reports.