TOKYO, Jan 4 ― Tokyo stocks ended the first session of 2022 on an upbeat note today after US shares also advanced on their first trading day of the year.
The Nikkei 225 rose 1.77 per cent, or 510.08 points, to end at 29,301.79, while the broader Topix index added 1.90 per cent, or 37.89 points, to 2,030.22.
Tokyo trading resumed after Wall Street's Dow and S&P 500 indexes ended at fresh records on Monday as investors cheered Apple's valuation briefly climbing to US$3 trillion (RM12.5 trillion).
“The Nikkei rebounded to 29,000 at the open after the Dow and S&P 500 ended at record high,” Okasan Online Securities said.
The Nikkei gained as “a wide variety of shares, mainly chip-related stocks, were bought”, it said.
The dollar rose to ¥115.81 in Asian trade against ¥115.47 in New York overnight. The yen is now at its lowest level in five years against the dollar as US treasury yields spike.
“The transition to a more normal global economy in 2022 will lead to a normalisation of monetary policy by several central banks, including the Fed” and that will weigh on the yen, David Forrester, senior FX strategist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg News.
In Tokyo, chipmaker Murata Manufacturing rose 2.47 per cent to ¥9,384 while Advantest, a major producer of testing kits for semiconductors, gained 3.57 per cent to ¥11,290.
Automakers were higher with Toyota soaring 6.12 per cent to ¥2,234, Honda climbing 3.06 per cent to ¥3,329 and Nissan jumping 6.17 per cent to ¥590.
SoftBank Group firmed 0.88 per cent to ¥5,482 while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing dipped 0.71 per cent to ¥64,840. ― AFP