TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average hit its highest level since March 1990 on Tuesday, as investors snapped up chip-related stocks tracking an overnight Wall Street rally in technology shares.
The Nikkei was up 1.44% at 33858.63 by the mid-day break, after hitting a 33-year high of 33990.28 earlier. Of the 225 stocks on the index, 151 advanced.
The broader Topix index was up 0.93%.
Chip-related stocks, which tend to move the benchmark, led the Nikkei’s rise after chipmakers Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices surged on Wall Street overnight.
Tokyo Electron and Advantest, up 4.27% and 7.06% respectively, combined were pushing the index up around 200 points.
Nintendo also made the top performers in the morning session, extending recent gains to move up 4.22%, as news swirled that the company might release a new game console this year.
DeNA led the pack, gaining 7.83%, after making an after-market announcement on Friday it would commence preparations to list shares for an equity-method affiliate company.
The Nikkei clocked its best year in a decade in 2023, aided by expectations of better governance.
After an initial pullback to start 2024, the Nikkei rallied an additional 1.6% from last year’s final trading day to hit Tuesday’s peak since Japan’s asset price bubble burst in 1989.
“I think a correction may not come as soon as next week or this week, but I’m a bit cautious, if not a little bit pessimistic over the near term” over the next few months, as markets assess the latest policy decisions by the Fed and Bank of Japan, said Naka Matsuzawa, chief macro strategist at Nomura.
Meanwhile, energy shares were among the worst performers, after oil prices fell about 4% on Monday on sharp price cuts by top exporter Saudi Arabia. The Tokyo Stock Exchange’s mining stock sub-index dropped 1.55%.
(Reporting by Brigid Riley; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
