Japanese Market Modestly Higher

(RTTNews) - Extending the gains in the previous two sessions, the Japanese stock market is modestly higher on Tuesday, with the Nikkei 225 moving above the 38,800 level, following the mixed cues from other global markets overnight, with gains across most sectors led by index heavyweights, exporters and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 141.76 points or 0.37 percent at 38,842.63, after touching a high of 38,967.56 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly higher on Monday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining almost 1 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is also up almost 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is adding almost 1 percent and Toyota is also gaining almost 1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is edging up 0.3 percent and Screen Holdings is gaining almost 1 percent, while Tokyo Electron is flat.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Mizuho Financial are gaining almost 2 percent each, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is adding almost 1 percent.

The major exporters are mostly higher. Panasonic is gaining more than 1 percent, Canon is edging up 0.2 percent and Sony is adding 1.5 percent, while Mitsubishi Electric is flat.

Among the other major gainers, Sapporo Holdings surged almost 5 percent, while NTT Data, CyberAgent and Mitsubishi Chemical Group gaining more than 4 percent each. Resona Holdings, Mercari, Yamato Holdings and Dai-ichi Life Holdings are adding more than 3 percent each, while NEC, Toho, Toray Industries, Rakuten Group and T&D Holdings are advancing almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Fujikura is losing almost 4 percent, while Hoya and Socionext are declining almost 3 percent each.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 146 yen-range on Tuesday.

On Wall Street, the markets were closed Labor Day on Monday after closing strongly higher on Friday.

The major European markets finished the day mixed, with the U.K.'s FTSE 100 ended down 0.15 percent, while Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 gained 0.13 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively.