Japanese Market Significantly Higher

(RTTNews) - Extending the gains in the previous session, the Japanese market is significantly higher on Friday, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 is moving well above the 37,200 level, with gains across all sectors led by index heavyweights and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 339.89 points or 0.92 percent to 37,268.52, after hitting a high of 37,409.38 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly higher on Thursday.

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

In the tech space, Advantest is gaining 1.5 percent and Screen Holdings is adding almost 1 percent, while Tokyo Electron is edging down 0.5 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are gaining more than 2 percent, while Mizuho Financial is adding more than 3 percent.

Among the major exporters, Sony, Mitsubishi Electric and Canon are gaining more than 1 percent each, while Panasonic adding almost 2 percent.

Among other major gainers, NTT Data skyrocketing more than 14 percent, while Kao and Ajinomoto are surging more than 6 percent each. Shiseido, OKUMA and Renesas Electronics are gaining more than 4 percent each, while Resona Holdings, IHI and Sumitomo Pharma are adding almost 4 percent each. Toray Industries and BANDAI NAMCO are advancing more than 3 percent each. Socionext and Fuji Electric are up almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Daikin Industries is losing almost 5 percent, while Omron and Trend Micro are declining almost 3 percent each.

In economic news, the average of household spending in Japan was up 2.1 percent on year in March, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said on Friday - coming in at 290,511 yen. That exceeded expectations for an increase of 0.2 percent following the 0.5 percent fall in the previous month.

The average of monthly income per household stood at 571,993 yen, down 2.3 percent in real terms from the previous year. On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, household spending rose 0.4 percent - again beating forecasts for a decline of 0.5 percent following the 3.5 percent jump in February.

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

On Wall Street, stocks turned in a strong performance throughout much of the trading day on Thursday after moving mostly higher early in the session, but giving back some ground going into the close.

The major averages pulled back well off their highs of the session but still finished the session firmly in positive territory. The Nasdaq jumped 189.98 points or 1.1 percent to 17,928.14, the Dow advanced 254.48 points or 0.6 percent to 41,368.45 and the S&P 500 climbed 32.66 points or 0.6 percent at 5,663.94.

Meanwhile, the major European markets turned mixed over the course of the session. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index fell by 0.4 percent, the French CAC 40 Index advanced by 0.9 percent and the German DAX Index jumped by 1.0 percent.

Crude oil prices rallied on Thursday following news of the trade agreement between the United States and Great Britain. West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery surged $1.84 or 3.2 percent to $59.91 a barrel.