Japanese Market Notably Higher

The Japanese stock market is slightly higher in choppy trading on Monday, extending the gains in the previous seven sessions, with the Nikkei 225 staying above the 30,800 level at 33-year highs, despite the broadly negative cues from Wall Street on Friday, aided by gains in market heavyweight stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 11.56 or 0.04 percent at 30,819.91, after touching a high of 30,860.36 and a low of 30,689.27 earlier. Japanese shares ended significantly higher on Friday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is edging up 0.1 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is losing more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is gaining more than 1 percent, while Toyota is losing almost 1 percent.

In the tech space, Screen Holdings is gaining more than 1 percent and Advantest is adding almost 2 percent, while Tokyo Electron is flat.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is adding almost 2 percent, while Mizuho Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are edging up 0.3 to 0.5 percent each.

The major exporters are mostly higher. Panasonic and Canon are edging up 0.3 to 0.5 percent each, while Mitsubishi Electric is gaining more than 1 percent. Sony is losing almost 1 percent.

Among the other major gainers, Tokio Marine is surging more than 5 percent, Fujikura is gaining almost 4 percent and Keisei Electric Railway are adding almost 3 percent.

Conversely, Renesas Electronics is losing more than 4 percent.

In economic news, the value of core machine orders in Japan was down a seasonally adjusted 3.9 percent on month in March, the Cabinet Office said on Monday – coming in at 852.9 billion yen. That was well shy of forecasts for an increase of 0.7 percent following the 4.5 percent decline in February. On a yearly basis, core machine orders were down 3.5 percent – also missing expectations for an increase of 1.4 percent following the 9.8 percent jump in the previous month.

For the first quarter of 2023, orders were up 2.6 percent on quarter and 1.8 percent on year at 2,670.5 billion yen. For the second quarter of 2023, core machine orders are forecast to rise 4.6 percent on quarter and sink 1.6 percent on year.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 137 yen-range on Monday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved mostly lower over the course of the trading session on Friday after an early move to the upside. The major averages pulled back off their early highs and into negative territory after moving sharply higher over the two previous sessions.

The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 reached nine-month intraday highs in early trading but ended the day in the red. The Nasdaq dipped 30.94 points or 0.2 percent to 12,657.90 and the S&P 500 edged down 6.07 points or 0.1 percent to 4,191.98, while the Dow fell 109.28 points or 0.3 percent to 33,426.63.

Meanwhile, the major European markets all moved to the upside on the 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 climbed by 0.6 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively.

Crude oil futures pared early gains and settled lower on Friday, weighed down by the ambiguity regarding the U.S. debt ceiling talks. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June slipped $0.31 or 0.4 percent to $71.55 a barrel; WTI crude futures gained 2.2 percent in the week.

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