By Rocky Swift and Junko Fujita<\/p>\n
TOKYO, May 7 (Reuters) – Japan’s Nikkei share average shot to a record high on Thursday and the nation’s bonds rallied as financial markets \u200creopened after holidays, catching up with optimism over strong technology earnings and signs of a \u200cpotential peace deal in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index rose 4.19% to 62,009.59, breaking through the 62,000 mark \u200bfor the first time. The broader Topix climbed 2.12% to 3,807.84.<\/p>\n
Japanese government bonds (JGBs) rose after a three-day trading break that saw the yen appreciate on suspected intervention by authorities in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
The yen bought 156.33 per dollar, largely steady a day after a sprint to a 10-week high of 155 fuelled talk of \u200cfurther official support.<\/p>\n
Wall Street indexes hit \u2060record highs overnight as positive results from Advanced Micro Devices propelled euphoria over the red-hot artificial intelligence sector. Iran said it is reviewing a U.S. proposal \u2060to end the more than two-month war, while President Donald Trump said the U.S. has had very good talks with Tehran.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s sharp gain of the Nikkei was led by the strong performance of chip shares, driven \u200bby \u200bAdvanced Micro Devices\u2019s strong forecast,” said Takamasa Ikeda, a senior \u200bportfolio manager at GCI Asset Management. \u201cThe contents \u200cof the U.S.-Iran peace proposals are thin, but there is an expectation in the market that further military action will not take place.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were 144 advancers on the Nikkei index against 78 decliners. The largest percentage gainers in the index were tech sector suppliers, led by Ibiden, up 15.9%, followed by Mitsui Kinzoku Ltd, gaining 15.3%, and Renesas Electronics, 12.8% higher.<\/p>\n
Mining and exporter shares were broadly lower, \u200chowever, marking a reversal from gains during the Iran \u200bconflict as energy prices surged and the yen weakened. Inpex, \u200bJapan\u2019s top oil and gas explorer, sank \u200b5.9%, while Honda Motor lost 0.7%.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe automakers remain weak as the environment has \u200cbecome severe with intensifying global competition,” said \u200bHiroyuki Ueno, chief strategist at \u200bSumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management. “Besides that, they may not enjoy benefits of the weak yen in the current fiscal year.”<\/p>\n
Minutes released on Thursday of the Bank of Japan’s March showed \u200bmany board members saw the \u200cneed to raise interest rates if the Iran war-driven energy shock is prolonged.<\/p>\n
The benchmark 10-year \u200bJGB yield fell 1.5 basis points (bps) to 2.485%. Yields move inversely to bond prices. The five-year yield fell 0.5 bps to 1.870%.<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby Rocky Swift in TokyoEditing by Shri Navaratnam)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Rocky Swift and Junko Fujita TOKYO, May 7 (Reuters) – Japan’s Nikkei share average shot to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[11839,1879,114,9835,85,87,46,1437,2374,7260],"class_list":["post-429249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-advanced-micro-devices","tag-bank-of-japan","tag-business","tag-financial-markets","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-japan","tag-nikkei","tag-nikkei-225"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}