Japanese Market Sharply Higher

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is trading sharply higher on Tuesday, reversing some of the losses in the previous three sessions, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight, with the Nikkei 225 moving above the 38,850 level, with gains across most sectors led by index heavyweights and technology stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 515.38 points or 1.34 percent at 38,869.47, after touching a high of 38,990.11 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly lower on Monday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining more than 4 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is adding almost 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is edging down 0.3 percent, while Toyota is edging up 0.5 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is edging up 0.2 percent, Screen Holdings is adding almost 5 percent and Tokyo Electron is advancing more than 4 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Mizuho Financial are gaining more than 1 percent each, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is edging up 0.5 percent.

The major exporters are mostly higher. Canon is edging up 0.3 percent, Panasonic is gaining almost 2 percent and Sony is gaining almost 3 percent, while Mitsubishi Electric is edging down 0.4 percent.

Among the other major gainers, Lasertec is soaring almost 10 percent, Furukawa Electric is surging more than 6 percent and Fujikura is gaining more than 4 percent, while Tokyo Electric Power, Japan Airlines and Sumitomo Electric Industries are adding more than 3 percent each. Ebara is advancing almost 3 percent.

Conversely, Inpex is losing almost 5 percent.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 145 yen-range on Tuesday.

On Wall Street, stocks rallied late in the day to push Wall Street higher on Monday after some early indecision. The major averages opened lower and hugged the unchanged line for much of the day as investors waited for Iran's response to the weekend U.S. air strikes on its nuclear sites.

For the day, the Dow jumped 374.96 points or 0.89 percent to finish at 42,581.78, while the NASDAQ rallied 183.56 points or 0.94 percent to close at 19,630.97 and the S&P 500 climbed 57.33 points or 0.96 percent to end at 6,025.17.

Meanwhile, the major European stocks finished modestly lower on Monday in the aftermath and uncertainty following the U.S. air strikes in Iran. Germany's DAX sank 81.54 points or 0.35 percent to finish at 23,269.01, while the FTSE in London dipped 16.61 points or 0.19 percent to close at 8,758.04 and the CAC 40 in France shed 52.09 points or 0.69 percent to end at 7,537.57.

Crude oil prices were on a roller coaster ride on Monday, moving sharply higher earlier in the day in response to the U.S. bombing attack in Iran. But as it looks like Iran won't try to block the Strait of Hormuz, prices plummeted later in the day. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery plunged $5.00 of 6.77 percent to $68.84 per barrel.