Japanese Market Significantly Higher

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is significantly higher on Wednesday, extending the gains in the previous session, with the Nikkei 225 moving above the 32,700 level, following the broadly positive cues from global markets overnight, with gains across most sectors, led by exporters and technology stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 292.43 or 0.90 percent at 32,786.32, after touching a high of 32,873.15 earlier. Japanese stocks ended modestly higher on Tuesday.

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

In the tech space, Screen Holdings is edging down 0.2 percent, while Advantest is gaining almost 1 percent and Tokyo Electron is adding almost 2 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is gaining almost 1 percent, while Mizuho Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are edging up 0.1 to 0.3 percent each.

Among the major exporters, Canon is gaining more than 1 percent, Panasonic is adding 1.5 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is up almost 1 percent. Sony is flat.

Among the other major gainers, Nissan Motor is surging almost 6 percent, Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha is gaining almost 5 percent and Mazda Motor is adding more than 4 percent, while Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are up almost 4 percent. Yamaha Motor, Mitsubishi Motors, Toppan, Hitachi and Hino Motors are advancing almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, there are no other major losers.

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

On the Wall Street, stocks moved sharply higher over the course of the trading day on Tuesday, extending the strong upward move seen over the past several sessions. With the continued advance, the major averages all reached their best closing levels in over a year.

The major averages finished the session just off their highs of the day. The Dow jumped 366.58 points or 1.1 percent to 34,951.93, the Nasdaq advanced 108.69 points or 0.8 percent to 14,353.64 and the S&P 500 climbed 32.19 points or 0.7 percent to 4,554.98.

The major European markets also moved to the upside on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index jumped by 1.1 percent, the German DAX Index advanced by 0.8 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index inched up by 0.1 percent.

Crude oil prices moved higher on Tuesday for the first time in three days as the dollar slipped after soft data. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended higher by $1.60 or 2.2 percent at $75.75 a barrel.