Japanese Market Significantly Higher

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is significantly higher on Wednesday, extending the gains in the previous session, despite following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 is moving well above the 38,700 level, with gains across most sectors led by index heavyweights and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 271.69 or 0.71 percent at 38,753.80, after touching a high of 38,797.97 earlier. Japanese stocks ended significantly higher on Tuesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining almost 4 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging up 0.2 percent. Among automakers, Honda is edging up 0.3 percent and Toyota is gaining more than 1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is gaining 3.5 percent, while Tokyo Electron is declining almost 1 percent and Screen Holdings is slipping more than 3 percent.

In the banking sector, Mizuho Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial are edging up 0.3 to 0.4 percent each, while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is gaining more than 1 percent.

Among the major exporters, Canon, Sony and Panasonic are edging up 0.1 to 0.4 percent each, while Mitsubishi Electric is losing almost 1 percent.

Among other major gainers, Mitsubishi Motors is soaring almost 9 percent, Sumitomo Pharma is surging almost 5 percent, Nidec is adding more than 4 percent and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is up almost 4 percent, while TDK and Tokio Marine are gaining more than 3 percent. Mazda Motor, Mitsubishi Chemical, East Japan Railway, Nitto Denko and Obayashi are advancing almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Trend Micro, Shiseido and Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings are losing almost 3 percent each.

In economic news, the Bank of Japan will on Wednesday release the minutes from its monetary policy meeting on April 25-26. At the meeting, the central bank left its key interest rate unchanged near zero and the bank's latest projections showed the underlying inflation staying around 2 percent that further damped expectations for aggressive tightening in future.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 157 yen-range on Wednesday.

On the Wall Street, stocks turned in a relatively lackluster performance during trading on Tuesday following the strong upward move seen over the course of the previous session. Despite the choppy trading, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq once again reached new record closing highs.

The major averages all finished the day modestly higher. The S&P 500 climbed 13.80 points or 0.2 percent to 5,487.03, the Dow rose 56.76 points or 0.2 percent to 38,834.86 and the Nasdaq inched up 5.21 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 17,862.23.

The major European markets also moved to the upside on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index advanced by 0.8 percent, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index climbed by 0.6 percent and the German DAX Index increased by 0.4 percent.

Crude oil prices climbed to near 7-week highs on Tuesday amid expectations of high summer demand for the commodity and continued production cuts by OPEC and allies. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for July ended up by $1.24 or about 1.54% at $81.57 a barrel, the highest settlement in nearly seven weeks.