TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese stock market is extending gains on Friday from the previous session following the mostly positive cues overnight from Wall Street amid upbeat corporate earnings results.
However, the market has pared early gains and is now modestly higher. Investors digested data showing that Japan's manufacturing activity grew at its slowest pace in 29 months in January.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is adding 31.03 points or 0.15 percent to 20,804.52, after touching a high of 20,929.63 earlier. Japanese shares rose sharply on Thursday.
The major exporters are mostly higher. Mitsubishi Electric is adding almost 2 percent, while Sony and Canon are advancing more than 1 percent each. Canon is down 0.4 percent.
In the tech sector, Advantest is rising more than 2 percent and Tokyo Electron is up 0.5 percent.
Among the major automakers, Toyota is edging up 0.1 percent and Honda is flat.
In the banking space, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial are declining almost 1 percent each. In the oil space, Japan Petroleum is up almost 1 percent, while Inpex is lower by 0.4 percent after crude oil prices declined overnight.
Among the major gainers, Taiyo Yuden is gaining almost 7 percent, Okuma Corp. is rising almost 5 percent and Astellas Pharma is higher by more than 4 percent.
On the flip side, Aozora Bank is losing more than 5 percent and Dena Co. is lower by almost 4 percent. Fukuoka Finanical Group, Shizuoka Bank are down almost 3 percent each.
In economic news, the latest survey from Nikkei revealed that the manufacturing sector in Japan continued to expand in January, albeit at a slower pace, with a manufacturing PMI score of 50.3. That's down from 52.6 in December, although it remains above the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said that the unemployment rate in Japan came in at a seasonally adjusted 2.4 percent in December. That was shy of expectations for 2.5 percent, which would have been unchanged from the November reading. The job-to-applicant ratio was 1.63, unchanged and in line with forecasts.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the upper 108 yen-range on Friday.
On Wall Street, stocks closed mostly higher on Thursday on better-than-expected earnings results from a range of companies including Facebook and General Electric, while a steep drop by shares of chemical giant DowDuPont weighed on the Dow.
The Nasdaq surged up 98.66 points or 1.4 percent to 7,281.74 and the S&P 500 advanced 23.05 points or 0.9 percent to 2,704.10, while the Dow edged down 15.19 points or 0.1 percent to 24,999.67.
The major European markets turned in a mixed performance on Thursday. While the German DAX Index edged down by 0.1 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index both rose by 0.4 percent.
Crude oil futures settled lower on Thursday, as traders chose to take some profits after recent gains. WTI crude for March ended down $0.44 or 0.8 percent at $53.79 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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