Tokyo (awp / afp) – The Tokyo Stock Exchange continued to rebound on Wednesday morning, encouraged by the gains on Wall Street the day before and by the continued decline of the yen, a positive factor for Japanese exporting companies.
The flagship Nikkei index gained 0.43% to 27,102.10 points after 1:30 a.m. GMT and the broader Topix index gained 0.68% to 1,908.58 points.
“Gains on Wall Street and the cheap yen are supporting” the Tokyo market, according to a note from Mizuho Securities.
The New York Stock Exchange ended sharply higher on Tuesday, driven by results from American companies, even if bond yields continued to climb on fears about the prospect of more vigorous monetary tightening in the United States.
The yen continued its tumble against the dollar on Wednesday, a favorable exchange rate movement for Japanese export stocks. But this at the same time makes imports more expensive and risks further weakening the consumption of Japanese households.
Japan, which massively imports its fossil fuels, thus posted an eighth monthly trade deficit in a row in March, according to data published shortly before the opening of the Tokyo market.
On the side of values
TOYOTA: the action of the Japanese car giant Toyota appreciated by 3.69% to 2,257.5 yen. The group is one of the main beneficiaries of the fall in the yen against the dollar, and it also announced on Tuesday that it was going to invest 383 million dollars in four of its factories in the United States, in particular to strengthen its production of hybrid vehicles.
On the side of oil and currencies
The oil market was slowly recovering from its heavy losses on Tuesday in the wake of sharply lowered global growth forecasts by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
After 01:00 GMT, the barrel of American WTI regained 0.58% to 103.15 dollars and the barrel of Brent from the North Sea was almost stable (+0.04% to 107.29 dollars).
The yen continued to sink against the dollar, which was getting ever closer to 130 yen (129.18 yen around 1:30 a.m. GMT against 128.91 yen on Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. GMT).
The Japanese currency also depreciated against the euro, which was worth 139.33 yen against 139.06 yen the day before.
The European currency traded for 1.0784 dollars against 1.0788 dollars on Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. GMT.
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