Sharply lower sales and trading in its home market dragged revenues at Japanese bank Nomura's global markets division down 10% and contributed to a near-halving of profits in the three months to the end of June.

Nomura, which just over a year ago announced plans to all but pull out of equities in Europe, said that global markets revenues declined in both equities and fixed income during its fiscal first quarter, with the overall figure of ¥154.2bn ($1.4bn) down from ¥170.5bn a year earlier.