Japanese Market Sharply Higher

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is sharply higher on Wednesday, extending the gains in the previous two sessions, with the Nikkei 225 moving up to nearly the 27,600 level, following the broadly positive cues from global markets overnight, amid hopes the US Fed might slow down the pace of its monetary tightening at its upcoming meetings.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 324.43 points or 1.19 percent at 27,574.71, after touching a high of 27,578.01 earlier. Japanese stocks closed significantly higher on Tuesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing are gaining more than 1 percent each. Among automakers, Honda and Toyota are gaining almost 1 percent each.

In the tech space, Tokyo Electron and Screen Holdings are edging down 0.1 to 0.2 percent each, while Advantest is flat.

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

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

Among the other major gainers, Denka is soaring 8.5 percent, while T&D Holdings and M3 are gaining almost 4 percent. Shiseido is adding more than 3 percent, while Takara Holdings, Recruit Holdings, Trend Micro, Shionogi & Co., Rakuten Group, Daiichi Sankyo and Eisai are all up almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, there are no major losers

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 148 yen-range on Wednesday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved sharply higher over the course of the trading day on Tuesday, extending the rally seen over the two previous sessions. With the continued advance, the major averages all reached their best closing levels in over a month.

The major averages reached new highs in the final hour of trading but gave back some ground going into the close. The Dow jumped 337.12 points or 1.1 percent at 31,836.74, the Nasdaq soared 246.50 points or 2.3 percent to 11,199.12 and the S&P 500 surged 61.77 points or 1.6 percent to 3,859.11.

The major European markets also moved mostly higher on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index ended the day nearly unchanged, the German DAX Index advanced by 0.9 percent and the French CAC 40 Index surged by 1.9 percent.

Crude oil futures settled higher Tuesday, buoyed by a weaker dollar and concerns about supply after Saudi Arabia's energy minister commented that energy stocks were being used as a mechanism to manipulate markets. West Texas Intermediate Crude futures for December ended higher by $0.74 or 0.9 percent at $85.32 a barrel.