Japanese Market Notably Higher

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is trading notably higher on Monday, extending the gains in the previous session, despite the broadly negative cues from Wall Street on Friday, with the Nikkei 225 moving up to near the 37,400 level, with gains in index heavyweights, automakers and technology stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 221.29 points or 0.60 percent at 37,381.76, after touching a high of 37,425.84 earlier. Japanese shares ended notably higher on Friday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining more than 1 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging up 0.2 percent. Among automakers, Honda is edging up 0.4 percent and Toyota is edging up 0.3 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is gaining almost 2 percent, Tokyo Electron is adding more than 2 percent and Screen Holdings is edging up 0.2 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Mizuho Financial are edging up 0.1 to 0.2 percent each, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is edging down 0.3 percent.

The major exporters are mixed. Panasonic is losing more than 1 percent and Canon is edging down 0.3 to 0.4 percent, while Mitsubishi Electric is edging up 0.1 percent and Sony is gaining almost 1 percent.

Among the other major gainers, Nippon Steel is surging almost 5 percent, while Keisei Electric Railway, CyberAgent and Lasertec are gaining more than 3 percent each. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, JFE Holdings and Fuji Electric are adding almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, there are no other major losers

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 142 yen-range on Monday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved sharply lower in early trading on Friday but regained some ground over the course of the session. While the major averages climbed well off their worst levels of the day, they still closed firmly in negative territory.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbled as much as 1.7 percent early in the session before ending the day down 188.53 points or 1.0 percent at 18,737.21. The S&P 500 also slid 39.19 points or 0.7 percent to 5,802.82 and the Dow fell 256.02 points or 0.6 percent at 41,603.07

The major European have all also moved to the downside on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index dipped 0.2 percent, the German DAX Index slumped by 1.5 percent and the French CAC 40 Index tumbled by 1.7 percent.

Crude oil prices ticked higher on Friday but still fell for the week amid reports of another production increase by OPEC for July. West Texas Intermediate crude for July delivery climbed $0.34 or 0.6 percent to $61.54 a barrel. For the week, crude fell 1.5 percent.