Japanese Market Significantly Higher

(RTTNews) - The Japanese market is trading significantly higher on Thursday, extending the gains in the previous two sessions, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 is moving well above the 64,550 level, with gains is index heavyweights, financial and technology stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 625.75 points or 0.98 percent to 64,579.94, after touching a high of 64,797.33 earlier. Japanese stocks ended significantly higher on Wednesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining more than 1 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging down 0.2 percent. Among automakers, Toyota is gaining almost 1 percent, while Honda is edging up 0.5 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is surging more than 7 percent, Tokyo Electron is edging up 0.3 percent and Screen Holdings is flat.

In the banking sector, Mizuho Financial is advancing more than 2 percent, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is gaining more than 1 percent and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is adding almost 2 percent.

Among the major exporters, Mitsubishi Electric and Sony are edging down 0.1 to 0.3 percent each, while Panasonic is declining almost 2 percent. Canon is is gaining almost 1 percent.

Among other major gainers, Kioxia Holdings is surging more than 7 percent and Nisshin Seifun is jumping more than 6 percent, while Ibiden and Furukawa Electric are gaining almost 5 percent each. Resonac Holdings is advancing almost 4 percent and Sumitomo Electric Industries is adding almost 3 percent.

Conversely, Hitachi is plunging almost 8 percent, NEC is tumbling more than 6 percent, Renesas Electronics is declining more than 4 percent and Socionext is losing almost 4 percent, while JTEKT, Capcom, Sharp and Nissan Chemical are down almost 3 percent each.

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

On Wall Street, stocks turned in a relatively lackluster performance during trading on Wednesday after moving notably higher over the two previous sessions. The major averages spent much of the day lingering near the unchanged line.

The major averages eventually closed modestly higher. The Dow edged up 97.53 points or 0.2 percent at 52,475.10, the S&P 500 rose 21.38 points or 0.3 percent to 7,743.98 and the Nasdaq climbed 72.04 points or 0.3 percent to 26,549.85.

The major European markets also moved to the upside on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index ended the day nearly unchanged, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index inched up by 0.1 percent and the German DAX Index climbed by 0.4 percent.

Crude oil prices surged on Wednesday as reports suggest possible U.S. attacks on Iran by next week, fueling supply disruption concerns for an indefinite period. West Texas Intermediate crude for December was up $3.12 or 3.12 percent at $103.02 per barrel.