Japan stocks rise amid Asian lunar new year shutdown

Japanese stocks rebounded from last week’s losses with a solid 1.1 per cent on Monday (February 8th), but it was a quiet session in Asia as many bourses are shut for the lunar new year.

The Nikkei 225 closed up at 17,004.30, although Toyota fell as it reported a 5.3 per cent drop in operating profits for the fourth quarter of 2015.

Elsewhere, markets in China are shut all week, while those in Hong Kong and South Korea are closed for three days because of the new year celebrations.

European stocks fell, with the DAX shedding 2.65 per cent in the morning session and the CAC 40 dropping 2.2 per cent.

In London, the FTSE 100 was trading down 1.8 per cent, with chip maker ARM Holding slipping more than five per cent after a bad session for US tech stocks on Friday.

The Nasdaq slipped to its lowest in 15 months, while the Dow Jones industrial average snapped a two-day winning streak to close down 1.3 per cent.

Futures trading pointed to a lower open on Wall Street on Monday as traders look towards the testimony of Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen later this week.

She is expected to sound a cautious note over the state of the US economy as the global outlooks worsens. Markets have all but priced out another rate rise in March, with data from CME Group pointing to just one further increase in rates this year.

Oil prices gave up early gains to drop sharply amid ongoing concerns about oversupply in the market.

US crude futures for March were down two per cent at just above $30, while Brent oil fell 2.3 per cent to hold just north of $33.

In forex, the US dollar was steady after dipping 2.6 per cent against a basket of its major peers last week.