Japanese Market Significantly Higher

(RTTNews) - Extending the gains the previous session, the Japanese stock market is significantly higher on Tuesday, with the Nikkei 225 moving above the 33,000 mark, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight, with gains in exporters and technology stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 223.24 points or 0.68 percent at 33,015.04, after touching a high of 33,172.13 earlier. Japanese shares ended sharply 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 is losing almost 1 percent and Toyota is edging down 0.5 percent.

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

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is edging down 0.5 percent, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is losing more than 1 percent and Mizuho Financial is down almost 1 percent.

The major exporters are mostly higher. Panasonic is gaining almost 1 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is adding almost 2 percent, while Sony and Canon are edging up 0.1 to 0.3 percent each.

Among the other major gainers, Renesas Electronics is gaining more than 5 percent and Nichirei is adding almost 3 percent.

Conversely, Resona Holdings in losing almost 3 percent.

In economic news, producer prices in Japan were up 0.2 percent on month in November, the Bank of Japan said on Tuesday. That was in line with expectations following the upwardly revised 0.3 percent contraction in October (originally -0.4 percent). On a yearly basis, producer prices rose 0.3 percent - exceeding expectations for 0.1 percent following the upwardly revised 0.9 percent gain in the previous month (originally 0.8 percent).

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

On Wall Street, stocks turned in a relatively lackluster performance during trading on Monday but managed to end the day moderately higher. With the upward move, the major averages once again finished the session at their best closing level in well over two years.

The major averages closed just off their highs of the session. The Dow climbed 157.06 points or 0.4 percent to 36,404.93, the Nasdaq edged up 28.51 points or 0.2 percent to 14,432.49 and the S&P 500 rose 18.07 points or 0.4 percent to 4,622.44.

Meanwhile, the major European markets turned in a mixed performance on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index edged down by 0.1 percent, the German DAX Index crept up by 0.2 percent and the French CAC 40 Index rose by 0.3 percent.

Crude oil futures settled marginally higher on Monday due to continued uncertainty about the outlook for energy demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures ended with a small gain of $0.09 or 0.13 percent at $71.32 a barrel.