Japanese Market Sharply Higher At All-time Highs

(RTTNews) - The Japanese market is trading sharply higher on Thursday, extending the gains in the previous four sessions, despite the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 is moving above the 71,100 level to all-time highs, with strong gains in technology and financial stocks partially offset by weakness in automaker stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 1,207.94 points or 1.73 percent to 71,110.19, after touching an all-time high of 71,395.07 earlier. Japanese stocks ended notably higher on Wednesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is advancing more than 3 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging up 0.1 percent. Among automakers, Toyota is edging down 0.5 percent and Honda is losing almost 1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is adding almost 1 percent, Screen Holdings is surging almost 7 percent and Tokyo Electron is gaining more than 3 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Mizuho Financial are all gaining more than 3 percent each.

Among the major exporters, Mitsubishi Electric is advancing more than 4 percent and Panasonic is gaining almost 3 percent, while Sony is losing almost 1 percent. Canon is flat.

Among other major gainers, Murata Manufacturing is soaring more than 12 percent, Socionext is surging more than 9 percent, and Recruit Holdings is jumping almost 8 percent, while Ajinomoto and Mitsubishi Electric are rising almost 6 percent each. Ibiden and UBE are advancing more than 5 percent each, while Resona Holdings, Renesas Electronics and Fuji Electric are gaining more than 4 percent each. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Yaskawa Electric are adding almost 4 percent each.

Conversely, Konami Group, DeNA and Nissan Motor are declining almost 3 percent each.