Japanese Market Sharply Higher

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is sharply higher on Wednesday, expending the gains in the previous four sessions, with the Nikkei 225 adding more than 600 points to be just below 27,600 level, tracking the broadly positive cues from global markets overnight, with gains across most sectors, particularly technology, exporter and financial stocks.

Traders are also looking ahead to the Bank of Japan's two-day monetary policy meeting starting later today, which is expected to keep its ultra-loose policy in place.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 632.12 points or 2.34 percent at 27,593.80, after touching a high of 27,602.23 earlier. Japanese stocks closed significantly higher on Tuesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining 2.5 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is adding almost 2 percent. Among automakers, Honda is gaining more than 2 percent and Toyota is adding almost 1 percent.

In the tech space, Screen Holdings is gaining more than 4 percent and Advantest is surging 5.5 percent and Tokyo Electron is adding almost 5 percent.

In the banking sector, Mizuho Financial, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial are gaining more than 1 percent each. Among the major exporters, Sony is gaining almost 4 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is adding more than 2 percent, while Panasonic and Canon are up more than 1 percent each.

Among the other major gainers, Dentsu Group is gaining almost 5 percent, while Recruit Holdings, NEXON, Minebea Mitsumi and Showa Denko K.K. are adding more than 4 percent each, while, Fujitsu, Omron, Toyota Tsusho, Nikon, Shin-Etsu Chemical, Toto and Olympus are up almost 4 percent each.

Conversely, there are no major losers.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 138 yen-range on Wednesday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved sharply higher during trading on Tuesday, more than offsetting the significant downturn seen over the course of the session on Monday. The major averages jumped early in the session and saw further upside as the day progressed.

The major averages ended the session just off their best levels of the day. The Dow surged 754.44 points or 2.4 percent to 31,827.05, the Nasdaq soared 353.10 points or 3.1 percent to 11,713.15 and the S&P 500 spiked 105.84 points or 2.8 percent to 3,936.69.

The major European markets all also showed strong moves to the upside on the day. While the German DAX Index spiked by 2.7 percent, the French CAC 40 Index surged by 1.8 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index jumped by 1.0 percent.

Crude oil futures ended sharply higher Tuesday amid signs of tighter supplies in the global oil market, while the dollar's continued weakness also contributed to the sharp rise in oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended higher by $1.62 or 1.6 percent at $104.22 a barrel.