Japanese Market Notably Higher

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is notably higher in choppy trading on Friday, extending the gains in the previous eight sessions, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 just above the 28,200 level, as the markets follow the broadly positive cues overnight from Wall Street and on continued upward momentum following heavy selling earlier this month. Traders also continue to monitor the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is gaining 110.21 points or 0.39 percent to 28,220.60, after touching a high of 28,338.81 earlier. Japanese shares closed modestly higher on Thursday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing more than 2 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is declining more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is flat and Toyota is edging up 0.4 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is edging up 0.1 percent, Screen Holdings is gaining almost 2 percent and Tokyo Electron is edging up 0.4 percent.

In the banking sector, Mizuho Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are edging down 0.2 to 0.4 percent each, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is slipping more than 1 percent.

Among major exporters, , Sony is declining almost 1 percent and Canon is edging down 0.4 percent, while Panasonic is edging up 0.4 percent. Mitsubishi Electric is flat.

Among the other major losers, Kyowa Kirin is losing almost 4 percent.

Conversely, Pacific Metals and Daiichi Sankyo are gaining almost 4 percent each, while Showa Denko is adding more than 3 percent.