Japanese Market Slightly Higher

(RTTNews) - Adding to the gains in the previous session, the Japanese stock market is slightly higher in choppy trading on Friday, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight. The benchmark Nikkei 225 is moving to near the 38,700 level, with gains in index heavyweights, exporters and financial stocks partially offset by weakness in technology stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is gaining 35.98 points or 0.09 percent to 38,669.00, after touching a high of 38,795.68 earlier. Japanese stocks closed modestly higher on Thursday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining almost 1 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is adding 1.5 percent. Among automakers, Honda is edging up 0.4 percent and Toyota is also edging up 0.5 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is losing more than 2 percent, Tokyo Electron is declining more than 1 percent and Screen Holdings is down almost 1 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial are edging up 0.3 to 0.5 percent each, while Mizuho Financial is gaining more than 1 percent.

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

Among other major gainers, IHI is soaring more than 6 percent, Otsuka Holdings is surging almost 5 percent and Sumitomo Metal Mining is gaining more than 4 percent, while NTT Data, Sumitomo Pharma and Shiseido are adding more than 3 percent each. Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Oriental Land, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Tokio Marine and Astellas Pharma are advancing almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, TDK is losing almost 3 percent.

In economic news, overall consumer prices in Japan were up 2.8 percent on year in May, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said on Friday. That exceeded expectations for an increase of 2.6 percent and up from 2.5 percent in April. On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, inflation rose 0.5 percent - again above forecasts for 0.2 percent and up from 0.4 percent in the previous month.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 158 yen-range on Friday.

On Wall Street, stocks indexes moved in starkly opposite directions during trading on Thursday following a modest move to the upside early in the session. While the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 pulled back off their early highs and into negative territory, the narrower Dow saw continued strength.

The Dow ended the day up 299.90 points or 0.8 percent at a nearly one-month closing high of 39,134.76, but the S&P 500 fell 13.86 points or 0.3 percent to 5,473.17 and the Nasdaq slumped 140.64 points or 0.8 percent to 17,721.59.

Meanwhile, the major European markets all moved notably higher on the day. While the French CAC 40 Index surged by 1.3 percent, the German DAX Index jumped by 1.0 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index advanced by 0.8 percent.

Crude oil prices advanced on Thursday after data showed crude inventories in the U.S. fell slightly more than expected last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for July ended higher by $0.60 at $82.17 a barrel.