Japan’s Nikkei hits one-month closing low as chipmakers falter

Japan’s Nikkei recorded its worst week in nearly three months on Friday, while ending the day flat, and was pressured by fears of aggressive rate hikes globally, while a weak yen provided little support.

The Nikkei closed down 0.04 percent to 27,650.84 points, and recorded a weekly decline of 3.4 percent, its worst loss since mid-June.

The broader Topix index fell 0.27 percent to 1930.17, after touching a six-week low of 1,926.05 earlier in the session. The index has lost 2.5 percent this week.

Market expectations of a US interest rate hike, hurting appetite for stocks, have been growing since Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech last week, which reiterated his focus on curbing inflation above all.

Technology companies have been particularly hard hit by the hawkish stance on interest rate hikes, making the sector the biggest drag in the broader market on Friday.

Shares of Nixon Video Games, which touched a six-month low after reporting quarterly earnings on Thursday, fell 3.06 percent, the biggest pressure on the Nikkei index.

Trend Micro shares fell 1.68% and lost more than 7% during the week, as the cyber security company’s shares fell from the two-decade high it hit last month.

The focus now turns to US employment data due later on Friday, which if strong could boost expectations of a 75 basis point interest rate hike by the central bank later in September, and also to the currency market, where the yen hit a 24-year low.