Silver falls below $86 as Middle East tensions and Federal Reserve policy expectations exert pressure

Updates with closing prices By Satoshi Sugiyama TOKYO, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Japanese shares fell more than 1% on Thursday, down for a second consecutive session, as investors paused after recent rallies, wary of the US rate outlook, higher yields and geopolitical tensions. The Nikkei 225 Index .N225 fell 1.42% to close at 69,042.11, while the broader Topix .TOPX slid 1.51% to 4,091.46. "Japanese shares had risen at a rapid pace through yesterday, and profit-taking has since picked up. That selling pressure appears to be continuing today," said Hiroki Takei, strategist at Resona Holdings. Japanese AI-related shares were subdued even after Samsung Electronics 005930.KS, the world's largest memory chipmaker, projected a nearly ninefold jump in third-quarter operating profit from the same period last year. Shares of chipmaker Rohm 6963.T lost 5.19%, the biggest percentage drag in nearly a month, while technology investor SoftBank Group 9984.T shed 4.28% and Tokyo Electron 8035.T dropped 2.48%. Concerns over US monetary policy remained in focus after Federal Reserve minutes released on Wednesday showed most participants signalling another rate hike by year-end. Market participants remained wary of French and Italian debt markets, with rising energy prices and fiscal concerns keeping sentiment fragile. Geopolitical tensions also dampened risk appetite, as increased attacks on shipping in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz fuelled concerns over Middle East oil supplies and pushed crude prices higher. Breadth was negative, with 165 decliners in the Nikkei 225 against 56 advancers and four unchanged. The largest percentage losers in the Nikkei were semiconductor silicon wafer supplier Sumco 3436.T, down 5.73%, followed by construction machinery maker Komatsu 6301.T, down 5.52%, and agricultural machinery and equipment maker Kubota Corporation 6326.T, down 5.42%. The largest percentage gainers were cybersecurity software company Trend Micro 4704.T, up 3.89%, followed by IT consulting firm Nomura Research Institute 4307.T, whic

Last week, institutional investors significantly sold off individual stocks, resulting in a net outflow of $11.0 billion from the U.S. stock market. Funds were mainly withdrawn from the technology sector, marking the third largest single-week outflow from individual stocks in the history of Bank of America's statistics.

Isomorphic Labs, a DeepMind spin-off, is in talks for new financing, with its valuation potentially reaching up to $50 billions. This comes only five months after its $2.1 billions Series B funding round.