Japanese Market Significantly Higher

(RTTNews) - Recouping the losses in the previous two sessions, the Japanese stock market is significantly higher on Tuesday, with the Nikkei 225 moving above the 40,200 level, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight, with gains in index heavyweights and technology stocks partially offset by weakness in automakers and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 462.20 points or 1.13 percent at 40,242.90, after touching a high of 39,929.67 earlier. Japanese shares ended modestly lower on Monday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining more than 1 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is adding almost 2 percent. Among automakers, Honda is losing 1.5 percent and Toyota is declining more than 1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest and Screen Holdings are gaining more than 2 percent each, while Tokyo Electron is advancing almost 3 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Mizuho Financial are losing more than 1 percent each, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is down almost 1 percent.

The major exporters are mixed. Panasonic is losing more than 1 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is down almost 1 percent, while Sony is gaining almost 3 percent and Canon is adding almost 1 percent.

Among the other major gainers, Fujikura is soaring more than 8 percent, Resonac Holdings is surging almost 6 percent, Hitachi is gaining almost 4 percent and Furukawa Electric is adding more than 3 percent.

Conversely, there are no other major losers.

In economic news, the M2 money stock in Japan was up 1.5 percent on year in June, the Bank of Japan said on Tuesday - coming in at 1,257.5 trillion yen. That was shy of expectations for a gain of 2.0 percent and down from 1.9 percent in May. The M3 money stock was up an annual 1.0 percent at 1,610.0 trillion yen, easing from 1.3 percent in the previous month.

The L money stock gained 3.0 percent on year at 2,178.5 trillion yen, down from 3.3 percent a month earlier. For the second quarter of 2024, M2 was up 1.8 percent on year, M3 rose 1.3 percent on year and L gained 3.0 percent on year.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 160 yen-range on Tuesday.

On Wall Street, stocks ended mixed on Monday, turning a bit sluggish after a fairly good start. Among the major averages, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 moved on to record highs, while the Dow ended in negative territory. Optimism about the outlook for interest rates aided stocks earlier in the session

The Dow edged down 31.08 points or 0.08 percent to 39,344.79. The S&P 500 ended higher by 5.66 points or 0.1 percent to 5,572.85, while the Nasdaq advanced 50.98 points or 0.28 percent to 18,403.74.

The major European markets also moved to the downside on the day. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 ended down 0.13 percent, France's CAC 40 closed lower by 0.63 percent, and Germany's DAX settled 0.02 percent down.

Crude oil prices fell on Monday after Hurricane Beryl forced the shutdown of some oil export facilities near Houston. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended down $0.83 or 1 percent at $82.33 a barrel.