Japanese Market Sharply Higher

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is trading sharply higher on Wednesday, extending the sharp gains in the previous session, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 is surging nearly 2 percent to near the 55,300 level, with gains across most sectors led by index heavyweights, exporters and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 1,043.90 or 1.92 percent at 55,292.29, after touching a high of 55,512.30 earlier. Japanese stocks ended sharply higher on Tuesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is jumping more than 8 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging up 0.5 percent. Among automakers, Honda is gaining more than 1 percent and Toyota is adding almost 2 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is gaining more than 3 percent, while Screen Holdings and Tokyo Electron are edging up 0.1 to 0.2 percent each.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is adding almost 2 percent, while Mizuho Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are gaining more than 1 percent each.

Among the major exporters, Mitsubishi Electric is gaining almost 1 percent, Canon is edging up 0.4 percent, Panasonic is advancing more than 4 percent and Sony is adding almost 2 percent.

Among other major gainers, Resonac Holdings is jumping almost 10 percent, Nintendo is soaring more than 7 percent and Furukawa Electric is surging more than 6 percent, while Sumitomo Metal Mining, Sumitomo Electric Industries and Yokogawa Electric are rising almost 6 percent each. Mitsui Kinzoku and Otsuka Holdings are gaining more than 5 percent each, while Ryohin Keikaku, Denka, Yokohama Rubber and Nippon Electric Glass are adding almost 5 percent each. Tokyo Electric Power and Fujikura are up almost 4 percent each.

Conversely, there are no other major losers.

In economic news, producer prices in Japan were down 0.1 percent on month in February, the Bank of Japan said on Wednesday. That missed forecasts for an increase of 0.1 percent and down from 0.2 percent in January. On a yearly basis, producer prices were up 2.0 percent - again missing forecasts for 2.2 percent and down from 2.3 percent in the previous month.

Export prices were up 1.5 percent on month and 5.9 percent on year, the bank said, while import prices rose 0.9 percent on month and 0.6 percent on year.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 158 yen-range on Wednesday.

On the Wall Street, stocks showed a lack of direction over the course of the trading day on Tuesday after recovering from an early sell-off to end Monday's session mostly higher. The major averages spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line.

The major averages eventually ended the day narrowly mixed. While the Nasdaq inched up 1.16 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 22,697.10, the Dow edged down 34.29 points or 0.1 percent to 47,706.51 and the S&P 500 dipped 14.51 points or 0.2 percent to 6,781.48. Meanwhile, the major European markets have shown strong moves back to the upside on the day. While the German DAX Index surged by 2.3 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index jumped by 1.8 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively.

Crude oil prices plunged on Tuesday after Trump said that the ongoing war would end "very soon" but provided no details. The conflict has driven oil prices to sky-high levels in recent days. West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery tumbled $9.47 or 9.99 percent at $85.30 per barrel.