Japanese Market Sharply Higher

(RTTNews) - Recouping the losses in the previous session, the Japanese market is sharply higher on Thursday, following the mostly positive cues from global markets overnight. The Nikkei 225 is surging above the 40,100 level, with gains across most sectors led by index heavyweights, technology and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 664.92 points or 1.69 percent to 40,116.77, after touching a high of 40,243.02 earlier. Japanese shares ended significantly lower on Wednesday.

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

In the tech space, Advantest and Screen Holdings are gaining almost 1 percent, while Tokyo Electron is adding almost 2 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mizuho Financial are gaining more than 1 percent, while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is adding almost 3 percent.

Among the major exporters, Canon and Sony are gaining almost 1 percent each, while Panasonic and Mitsubishi Electric are adding more than 1 percent each.

Among other major gainers, Socionext is skyrocketing almost 13 percent, DeNA is soaring more than 9 percent and Sumitomo Metal Mining is surging more than 7 percent, while Tokyo Electric Power and Fujikura are advancing almost 6 percent each. Kao, Ebara and Mitsubishi Materials are gaining almost 5 percent each, while Fanuc, Sumco, Nitto Denko, Konami Group, Taiyo Yuden, Mitsui Mining & Smelting and TDK are adding almost 4 percent each.

Conversely, there are no other major losers.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 151 yen-range on Thursday.

On Wall Street, stocks recovered from an initial move to the downside and spent most of Wednesday's trading session in positive territory. Buying interest waned in the latter part of the session, however, with the major averages eventually ending the day narrowly mixed.

While the Dow edged down 43.10 points or 0.1 percent to 39,127.14, closing lower for the third consecutive session, the S&P 500 crept up 5.68 points or 0.1 percent to 5,211.49 and the Nasdaq rose 37.00 points or 0.2 percent to 16,277.46.

Meanwhile, the major European markets moved to the upside on the day. While the German DAX Index climbed by 0.5 percent, the French CAC 40 Index rose by 0.3 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index closed just above the unchanged line.

Crude oil prices climbed higher Wednesday after OPEC ended its meeting without making any changes to its production policy. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May ended higher by $0.28 or 0.33 percent at $85.43 a barrel.