Japanese Market Significantly Higher

(RTTNews) - Extending the slight gains the previous session, the Japanese stock market is significantly higher on Tuesday, with the Nikkei 225 moving above the 32,800 level, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight, with gains in technology and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 219.76 points or 0.67 percent at 32,804.87, after touching a high of 32,836.27 earlier. Japanese shares ended slightly higher on Monday.

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

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

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is gaining almost 1 percent, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is adding 2.5 percent and Mizuho Financial is advancing almost 3 percent.

The major exporters are mostly higher. Canon is gaining almost 1 percent, Panasonic is adding more than 1 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is edging up 0.1 percent, while Sony is edging down 0.1 percent.

Among the other major gainers, Taisei is soaring almost 9 percent, while Sumitomo Electric and Isetan Mitsukoshi are gaining more than 4 percent each. Isuzu Motors and Mazda Motor are adding more than 3 percent each, while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is advancing almost 3 percent.

Conversely, Fukuoka Financial Group is losing more than 4 percent and Nissan Chemical is down almost 4 percent, while Rakuten Group, Kajima and LY are declining almost 3 percent each.

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

On Wall Street, stocks turned in a lackluster performance throughout much of the trading session on Monday after recovering from an early move to the downside. The major averages spent most of the afternoon lingering near the unchanged line.

The major averages eventually ended the day narrowly mixed. While the Dow inched up 54.77 points or 0.2 percent to 34,337.87, the Nasdaq dipped 30.36 points or 0.2 percent to 13,767.74 and the S&P 500 edged down 3.69 points or 0.1 percent to 4,411.55.

Meanwhile, the major European markets all moved to the upside on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index advanced by 0.9 percent, the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index climbed by 0.7 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.

Crude oil prices moved up on Monday, gaining for a third straight session amid some optimism about the outlook for energy demand, as well as a weaker dollar. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended higher by $1.09 or 1.4 percent at $78.26 a barrel.