Japanese Market Advances

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market, which was closed on Wednesday for a public holiday, is advancing on Thursday, tracking the overnight gains on Wall Street.

In late-morning trades, the benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is rising 95.69 points or 0.51 percent to 18,982.39, off a high of 19,071.41 earlier.

Among the major exporters, Panasonic is adding 0.5 percent, Casio Computer is edging up 0.07 percent, Sharp Corp is advancing almost 1 percent and Canon is rising 0.9 percent.

Market heavyweight Fast Retailing is adding 0.5 percent and SoftBank is advancing almost 1 percent. Automaker Toyota is up 0.1 percent.

In the banking space, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is rising 0.7 percent, Mizuho Financial Group is up 1 percent and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is rising 1.4 percent.

Meanwhile, shares of Takata Corp. are losing more than 4 percent after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said an exploding Takata airbag was connected to an eighth death in the U.S.

The Nikkei business daily reported that Jupiter Telecommunications or J:COM will acquire TV shopping network Jupiter Shop Channel in a deal worth more than 100 billion yen. Trading house Sumitomo and telecom group KDDI each own half of J:COM. Sumitomo's shares are up 2.6 percent and KDDI Corp. is down 0.5 percent.

Among the other major gainers, JFE Holdings is rising more than 3 percent, Furukawa is advancing almost 3 percent and Nippon Suisan Kaisha is up 2.5 percent.

On the economic front, minutes from the central bank's November 18-19 meeting revealed on Thursday that members of the Bank of Japan's monetary policy meeting noted the country's economic recovery continued at a satisfactory pace. The board said that weakness from commodity-exporting economies continue to be the primary downside risk.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar traded slightly below the 121 yen-range on Thursday.

On Wall Street, stocks rallied on Wednesday, partly due to an increase in the price of crude oil. Traders were also reacting to a slew of U.S. economic data, including a report from the Commerce Department showing that new home sales increased for the second consecutive month in November.

The Dow jumped 185.34 points or 1.1 percent to 17,602.61, the Nasdaq advanced 44.82 points or 0.9 percent to 5,045.93 and the S&P 500 surged up 25.32 points or 1.2 percent to 2,064.29.

The major European markets showed substantial moves to the upside on Wednesday. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index soared by 2.6 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index both jumped by 2.3 percent.

Crude oil futures rallied Wednesday after a surprising drop in U.S. oil inventories. WTI crude for February delivery jumped $1.36 or 3.8 percent to close at $37.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.