TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Ahead of Monday's holiday for Culture Day, the Japan stock market had jumped higher in three straight sessions, advancing almost 2,200 points or 4 percent in that span. The Nikkei 225 now rests just above the 52,400-point plateau although it may run out of steam on Tuesday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is murky, with technology stocks expected to provide a slight bump. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian bourses figure to follow suit.
The Nikkei finished sharply higher on Friday following gains from the financial shares and technology stocks, while the automobile producers were soft.
For the day, the index skyrocketed 1,085.73 points or 2.12 percent to finish at the daily high of 52,411.34 after trading as low as 51,613.03.
Among the actives, Nissan Motor stumbled 4.12 percent, while Mazda Motor tanked 2.32 percent, Toyota Motor retreated 1.48 percent, Honda Motor slumped 2.16 percent, Softbank Group spiked 2.91 percent, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial collected 0.34 percent, Mizuho Financial improved 0.76 percent, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial gained 0.77 percent, Mitsubishi Electric rallied 2.64 percent, Sony Group jumped 2.36 percent, Panasonic Holdings plummeted 6.52 percent and Hitachi skyrocketed 7.15 percent.
The Dow dropped 226.19 points or 0.48 percent to finish at 47,336.68, while the NASDAQ climbed 109.77 points or 0.46 percent to close at 23,834.72 and the S&P 500 rose 11.77 points or 0.17 percent to end at 6,851.97.
The gain by the tech-heavy NASDAQ reflected a sharp increase by shares of Amazon (AMZN) after it announced a $38 billion agreement with OpenAI. Market leader Nvidia (NVDA) also rallied after software giant Microsoft (MSFT) revealed it has secured export licenses to ship Nvidia chips to the United Arab Emirates.
On the other hand, shares of Merck (MRK) weighed on the Dow, as did Nike (NKE), 3M (MMM) and Chevron (CVX).
In U.S. economic news, the Institute for Supply Management said manufacturing activity unexpectedly contracted at a slightly faster rate in October.
Crude oil prices edged slightly higher on Monday after OPEC agreed to halt production hikes for the first quarter of 2026. West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery was up $0.07 or 0.11 percent at $61.05 per barrel.
Closer to home, Japan will see October results for the manufacturing PMI from Jibun Bank later this morning; in September, the index score was 48.3.
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