Japanese Market Modestly Higher

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is trading modestly higher on Monday, extending the gains in the previous two sessions, following the mixed cues from Wall Street on Friday, with the Nikkei 225 moving above the 37,600 level, with gains in index heavyweights, technology and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 107.35 points or 0.29 percent at 37,610.68, after touching a high of 37,726.44 earlier. Japanese shares ended sharply higher on Friday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining almost 2 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is adding more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is edging down 0.2 percent, while Toyota is edging up 0.2 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is gaining more than 4 percent and Tokyo Electron is gaining almost 1 percent while Screen Holdings is edging down 0.2 percent.

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

The major exporters are mixed. Panasonic and Mitsubishi Electric are edging down 0.1 to 0.4 percent each, while Sony and Canon are edging up 0.5 percent each.

Among the other major gainers, Tokyu Fudosan is surging almost 5 percent and Kawasaki Heavy Industries is gaining more than 4 percent, while Taiyo Yuden, Renesas Electronics and Isetan Mitsukoshi are adding more than 3 percent each. Idemitsu Kosan, Furukawa Electric, Yaskawa Electric and Disco are advancing almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, DeNA is plummeting more than 14 percent and Chugai Pharmaceutical is sliding more than 6 percent, while Daiichi Sankyo, Nippon Steel and Meiji Holdings is losing more than 5 percent each. Takeda Pharmaceutical is down 4.5 percent, while Otsuka Holdings and NH Foods are slipping almost 4 percent. Nitori Holdings, Astellas Pharma, Eisai and Recruit Holdings are declining almost 3 percent each.

In economic news, the value of overall bank lending in Japan slowed for the second straight month, rising just 2.4 percent on year to 636.545 trillion yen, the Bank of Japan said on Monday. That's down from 2.8 percent in March and 3.0 percent in February.

Excluding trusts, bank lending was up an annual 2.6 percent to 558.171 trillion yen, down from 3.0 percent in the previous month. Lending from trusts rose 1.3 percent on year to 78.373 trillion yen, while lending from foreign banks surged an annual 21.0 percent to 5.803 trillion yen.

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

On Wall Street, stocks showed a lack of direction over the course of the trading session on Friday after failing to sustain an initial move to the upside. The major averages spent much of the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before eventually closing narrowly mixed.

While the Nasdaq crept up 0.78 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 17,928.92, the S&P 500 edged down 4.03 points or 0.1 percent to 5,659.91 and the Dow dipped 119.07 points or 0.3 percent to 41,249.38.

Meanwhile, the major European have all moved to the upside on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index rose by 0.2 percent, the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index both climbed by 0.6 percent.

Crude oil prices moved sharply higher on Friday, extending gains in the previous session amid optimism about a potential U.S.-China trade deal. West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery crude for June delivery jumped $1.11 or 1.9 percent to $61.02 a barrel.