Nikkei 225 Drops 2.2% Led by Chip Stocks
nashnova research
The Nikkei 225 fell 2.2% Monday to 64,930.03, led by chip stocks, after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's Friday remarks lifted rate-hike expectations — a weaker yen and Middle East tensions added further pressure.
Which stocks took the hardest hit?
Chip-testing equipment maker Advantest fell the most, down 7.8% in a single session.
SoftBank Group dropped 4.2%; Tokyo Electron lost 3.8% — all three leading decliners sit in the semiconductor and tech sector.
This means → the market priced "U.S. rates may rise" into the highest-valuation, most rate-sensitive names first — chip stocks.
What did the Fed say to rattle Japanese equities this much?
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh spoke Friday; markets read the remarks as raising the probability of a rate hike.
In plain terms = if U.S. borrowing costs keep climbing, global capital flows back into dollar assets, and markets like Japan — whose valuations lean on loose monetary conditions — get hit first.
The currency market is already moving: USD/JPY rose to 160.00, up from 159.48 at Friday's Tokyo close, pushing the yen weaker still.
A weaker yen usually helps exporters — why is it hurting stocks?
Normally yen depreciation is a tailwind for exporters, but this time the cause matters — the yen is weakening because of U.S. rate-hike expectations, not because Japan's economy is improving.
This means → capital is leaving Japan for the dollar; the stock-and-currency double selloff runs on the same logic: money is walking out.
USD/JPY 160 is a psychological threshold; if it holds, foreign selling pressure could intensify further.
What risk is the Middle East adding?
U.S. forces on Sunday struck two Iranian rocket-launcher sites near the Strait of Hormuz, sending geopolitical risk sharply higher.
The Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which roughly a fifth of global crude shipments pass — would trigger an oil-price spike if disrupted.
This reflects a market caught between two forces: rate-hike expectations draining liquidity on one side, geopolitical conflict driving risk-off sentiment on the other — both pointing toward "sell risk assets."
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