TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese stock market is edging up in choppy trading on Wednesday, after the benchmark Nikkei index treaded above the 29,200 level earlier, following positive lead overnight from Wall Street.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is gaining 7.28 points or 0.03 percent to 29,035.22, after touching a high of 29,233.47 in early trades. Japanese stocks closed higher on Tuesday.
Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is declining almost 2 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is down more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is losing almost 2 percent, while Toyota is edging down 0.2 percent.
In the tech space, Tokyo Electron is edging up 0.1 percent, Advantest is up more than 1 percent and Screen Holdings is adding almost 1 percent. In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is adding more than 1 percent, while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is losing almost 1 percent.
The major exporters Panasonic and Cannon are declining more than 1 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is down almost 1 percent, while Sony is adding almost 3 percent.
Among the other major gainers, Dai Nippon Printing is gaining almost 6 percent, and Yamaha Motor is adding nearly 4 percent, while Yamato Holdings, Denso, Fujitsu, Fuji Electric, Okuma and Fanuc are alls rising almost 3 percent each.
Conversely, M3 is losing almost 5 percent, and Tokyo is down almost 4 percent, while Nippon Steel, JFE Holdings, Inpex, Mazda Motor and Kobe Steel are all lower by more than 3 percent each.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 108 yen-range on Wednesday.
On Wall Street, following the sell-off seen in the previous session, U.S. technology stocks showed a substantial move back to the upside during trading on Tuesday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq skyrocketed, bouncing off a nearly three-month closing low.
The Nasdaq soared 464.66 points or 3.7 percent to 13,073.82, recording its biggest single-day gain since last November. The S&P 500 also jumped 54.09 points or 1.4 percent to 3,875.44, while the Dow posted a much more modest gain, inching up 30.30 points or 0.1 percent to 31,832.74.
The major European markets all moved to the upside over the course of the trading day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index edged up by 0.2 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index both rose by 0.4 percent.
Crude oil futures failed to hold early gains and settled lower on Tuesday, extending losses from previous session. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April ended down $1.04 or 1.6 percent at $64.01 a barrel after rising to a high of $65.98 a barrel earlier in the day.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2021 AFX News
