TOKYO (AFP): Tokyo’s key Nikkei index closed at a fresh three-decade high on Monday, with investors encouraged by Wall Street rallies helped by a bumper US jobs report.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index ended its third straight winning session up 2.20 percent, or 693.21 points, at 32,217.43, while the broader Topix index added 1.70 percent, or 37.09 points, to 2,219.79.
The Nikkei last finished above 32,000 in 1990 — shortly before Japan’s “bubble” economy burst, which triggered decades of economic malaise.
Investors cheered sharp gains of US shares on Friday that came on a stronger-than-expected jobs report, as well as fresh data pointing to improvement in China’s service sector.
The passage of a US debt ceiling deal through Congress also eased market fears of a potentially catastrophic default.
Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut oil output and oil prices will be a focus for traders, as “higher oil prices negatively affect Europe and Asia’s big oil importer economies”, Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said.
The dollar fetched 140.28 yen in Asian trade, against 139.97 yen in New York late Friday.
Fast Retailing, which operates the Uniqlo brand, jumped 3.86 percent to 34,160 yen and Advantest, which makes semiconductor tests, rose 3.38 percent to 18,330 yen.
Honda jumped 3.21 percent to 4,185 yen and Toyota gained 0.95 percent to 2,028.5 yen, with SoftBank Group rising 0.85 percent to 6,022 yen. Tokyo Electron recovered from early losses and gained 0.75 percent to 19,420 yen.
Meanwhile, China’s software and information technology service industry reported double-digit growth in revenue and profits in the first four months of the year, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed.
Profits of the sector expanded 13.8 percent year on year to 367.4 billion yuan (about 51.77 billion US dollars) in the period, while revenue grew by 12.8 percent from a year ago to 3.32 trillion yuan, showed the data.
Revenue from software products increased by 11.1 percent year on year to 818.3 billion yuan in this period. Revenue from industrial software products expanded to 81.48 billion yuan, marking a year-on-year increase of 15.1 percent, according to the data.
Cloud computing and big data services revenue jumped 16.3 percent year on year, and e-commerce platform technical services revenue rose 4.1 percent, the data showed.
