Japanese stocks close with losses, with the Nikkei at its lowest level in 3 weeks.

Japanese stock indices dropped sharply during trading on Friday, amidst a significant rise in the Japanese bond market and concerns raised by the economic data released this morning, which led to the closure of Tokyo's main stock index at its lowest level in nearly three weeks.

In terms of trading, the benchmark Japanese stock index, Nikkei 225 NIKKEI, closed down 1.05% at 39,190.40 points, while the broader Topix TOPIX index fell 0.65%, recording 2,718.14 points.

This comes after Japanese bonds led a wave of global increases, with the yield on the standard ten-year bonds reaching its highest level in 13 and a half years at 1.185% on Thursday, amidst concerns about the potential impacts of Trump's planned tariffs on the global economy after taking office.

Locally, data released earlier today showed a drop in the composite index of leading economic indicators in Japan to 107 in November, down from 109.1 in October, while household consumption fell by 0.4% year-on-year despite a 0.7% rise in real income for working households.

At the same time, the data also showed an increase in Japan's exports during the first 20 days of December by 3.8% to 6.581 trillion yen, but imports rose by 5.6% to 7.328 trillion yen, resulting in an expansion of the country's trade deficit to 746.69 billion yen.

Regarding individual stock trades, losses were led by shares of the Japanese retail giant Fast Retailing, which fell by 6.81%, while Mitsui Mining & Smelting shares dropped by 6.49%. Additionally, shares of Otsuka Holdings declined by 4.41%.