The Nikkei closed at 13,286.37 points, down 176.83. At the start of its spiral, it had been above 13,900. Since June 18, the Nikkei has lost nearly 1,200 points. High oil prices have been held largely responsible for the monumental decreases. On June 30, Nmyex crude oil hit an all-time high of $143.67 per barrel. Most recently, oil was on another upswing, up $1.63 to $142.60.

Equity market underperformance was a common trend all around the world on Wednesday as, in Europe, the Eurostoxx closed below session-open levels, down 4.23 points to 2,846.26. The German Dax was down 10.52 to 6,305.42.

In the UK, the FTSE 100 was down 53.60 to 5,426.30 at the close. IG Index head of sales and trading Tim Hughes attributed the FTSE's losses to the release of bad news on the corporate front.

"It has been a game of two halves today with a strong rally in the morning pushing the index well above the 5500 mark although this has faded as the day has gone on," he wrote in an email to clients.

"Marks and Spencer's announcement of a drop in like-for-like sales over the past three months saw 20% wiped off its share price in pretty short order. The downbeat outlook within the statement confirmed that the UK shopper is feeling the pinch and also weighed on the likes of Next and Sainsbury."

Hughes also saw potential for further losses in the UK with expected-soft data coming out of the U.S. on Thursday.

"Tuesday saw the Dow Jones index briefly slip to fresh lows for the year - the broader US index the S&P 500 and our own FTSE continue to hold for now above the 2008 lows. With US unemployment data due out on Thursday, UK traders may have to wait till Friday's July 4th American holiday to get any sort of respite from the current volatility."

On Wednesday, with the rising oil prices, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 21.01 points to 11,361.25, its lowest level since August 2006. The S&P 500 was down 2.44 to 1,282.47 and the Nasdaq was down 20.35 to 2,284.62.

The S&P TSX composite index, meanwhile, was not getting any help from oil, the index down 68.55 to 14,398.48.

All data taken at 11:40 a.m. EDT.

By Ryan Szporer, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , edited by Cristina Markham, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

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