Japanese Market Modestly Higher

(RTTNews) - Extending the slight gains in the previous session, the Japanese market is modestly higher on Friday, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 is moving well above the 39,850 level, with gains in exporters, financial and technology stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 92.73 points or 0.23 percent to 39,878.63, after touching a high of 40,012.66 earlier. Japanese shares ended slightly higher on Thursday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is flat and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is losing almost 1 percent. Among automakers, Toyota is edging down 0.5 percent and Honda is losing almost 1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is gaining almost 3 percent, Tokyo Electron is adding more than 1 percent and Screen Holdings is advancing almost 4 percent.

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

Among the major exporters, Sony is gaining almost 2 percent, Canon is edging up 0.2 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is adding almost 1 percent, while Panasonic is edging down 0.3 percent.

Among other major gainers, Ryohin Keikaku is gaining almost 4 percent.

Conversely, there are no other major losers.

In economic news, the average of household spending in Japan was up 4.7 percent on year in May, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said on Friday - coming in at 316,085 yen. That beat forecasts for an increase of 1.3 percent following the 0.1 percent contraction in April.

On a monthly basis, household spending rose a seasonally adjusted 4.6 percent - again exceeding expectations for a gain of 0.4 percent following the 1.8 percent decline in the previous month. The average of monthly income per household stood at 522,318 yen, up 0.4 percent from the previous year.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 144 yen-range on Friday.

On Wall Street, stocks saw continued strength during trading on Thursday after moving mostly higher over the course of Wednesday's session. With the continued advance, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 once again reached new record closing highs.

The major averages moved roughly sideways after an early upward move, hovering firmly in positive territory. The Nasdaq jumped 207.97 points or 1.0 percent to 20,601.10, the S&P 500 advanced 51.93 points or 0.8 percent to 6,279.35 and the Dow climbed 344.11 points or 0.7 percent to 44,828.53.

The major European markets also moved to the upside on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index crept up by 0.6 percent, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index and the German DAX Index both climbed by 0.6 percent.

Crude oil prices settled lower on Thursday as excess U.S. inventories and an upcoming OPEC+ meeting triggered supply side concerns. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery closed down by $0.45, to settle at $67 per barrel.