TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese stock market is notably higher on Thursday following the overnight rebound on Wall Street and on optimism that more global central banks will respond to the coronavirus outbreak with stimulus packages.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is rising 226.68 points or 1.07 percent to 21,326.74, after touching a high of 21,399.87 in early trades. Japanese stocks closed mixed on Wednesday.
Market heavyweight SoftBank is rising more than 1 percent and Fast Retailing is adding 0.5 percent. In the tech space, Advantest is down 0.4 percent, while Tokyo Electron is adding 0.5 percent.
The major exporters are mostly higher. Sony is rising almost 2 percent, Canon is advancing 1 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is adding almost 1 percent, while Panasonic is edging down 0.1 percent.
Among auto stocks, Honda Motor is advancing more than 2 percent and Toyota Motor is adding 0.5 percent. In the oil sector, Japan Petroleum is advancing almost 2 percent, while Inpex is down 0.5 percent after crude oil prices declined overnight.
Among the major gainers, Meiji Holdings is gaining more than 4 percent, while Takeda Pharmaceutical, Otsuka Holdings, Hitachi, Daiichi Sankyo and Toppan Printing are all rising more than 3 percent each.
Takeda Pharmaceutical is working on developing an experimental therapy for the coronavirus and intends to make it available in nine to 18 months.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the mid 107 yen-range on Thursday.
On Wall Street, stocks rebounded sharply on Wednesday after former Vice President Joe Biden performed much better than expected in yesterday's Super Tuesday contests, including an upset victory over Senator Bernie Sanders in delegate-rich Texas. Biden is seen as likely to be a much more pro-business president than Sanders. Adding to the positive sentiment, the Institute for Supply Management released a report showing service sector growth unexpectedly accelerated to a one-year high in February.
The Dow spiked 1,173.45 points or 4.5 percent to 27,090.86, the Nasdaq soared 334.00 points or 3.9 percent to 9,018.09 and the S&P 500 jumped 126.75 points or 4.2 percent to 3,130.12.
The major European markets all moved significantly higher on Wednesday. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index jumped by 1.5 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index surged up by 1.3 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.
Crude oil futures drifted lower on Wednesday as traders made cautious moves, looking ahead to the meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC and its allies in Vienna this week. WTI crude oil for April ended down $0.40, or about 0.9 percent, at $46.78 a barrel.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2020 AFX News
