Tokyo stocks rebound over Wall Street gains

TOKYO (Xinhua/APP): Tokyo stocks rebounded to close higher on Monday, bolstered by the upward momentum in the US stock market amid gains in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei stock index, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average, gained 545.71 points, or 1.73 percent, from Friday to end at 32,169.99.

The broader Topix index, meanwhile, finished 33.41 points, or 1.47 percent, higher at 2,299.81.

During the final hours of trading, the Nikkei Average experienced a widening of its gains, led by activity in stock index futures. In the previous week, the market witnessed significant losses ahead of US Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech.

The US Federal Reserve is “prepared to raise rates further” to bring down inflation toward the 2 percent inflation target, but will “proceed carefully,” Powell said on Friday, leaning toward a hawkish stance that favors monetary tightening, and gains in Wall Street at the end of the previous week led short-term investors to engage in buybacks of futures in the Tokyo market.

As uncertainties loomed over the future course of US monetary policy, many investors here adopted a wait-and-see approach, anticipating volatile market movements in the short term leading up to the September meeting of the US Federal Open Market Committee.

On the Prime market, gainers were led by machinery, oil and coal products, and iron and steel shares.

Issues that rose outpaced those that fell by 1,508 to 276, while 50 ended the day unchanged.

The turnover for the day came in at 2.89 trillion yen (19.74 billion US dollars), below the 3-trillion-yen mark for the seventh consecutive trading day.