Tokyo (awp/afp) – The Tokyo Stock Exchange rose on Wednesday at the start of the session, awaiting a new burst of results from companies, including those of the automotive giant Toyota during the session, and while Wall Street also regained confidence the day before.
The flagship Nikkei index gained 0.46% to 27,410.49 points around 00:50 GMT and the broader Topix index gained 0.42% to 1,942.26 points.
While Wall Street’s rebound on Tuesday brought support, investors’ attention in Japan “is now focused on the results of Toyota”, the first Japanese market capitalization with immense ramifications in the country’s industry, summed up the analyst of Monex Toshiyuki Kanayama in a note.
On the side of values
THE MOMENT T FOR TOYOTA: the world’s number one car manufacturer Toyota (+ 1.65% to 2,334 yen) publishes its results for the third quarter of 2021/22 at the start of the afternoon in Japanese time.
Toyota’s performance could turn out better than expected, despite headwinds like continued production difficulties due to Covid-19 and semiconductor shortages. On Tuesday, Nissan (+3.37% to 613 yen) published reassuring quarterly results and raised its annual forecasts in passing.
SOFTBANK GROUP climbed 2.31% to 5,425 yen. The Japanese giant of investments in new technologies confirmed Tuesday after the closing of the Tokyo Stock Exchange the end of its project to sell the British manufacturer of Arm microprocessors to the American Nvidia, become impossible in the face of a mountain of regulatory obstacles.
But investors had been expecting that failure for months, and SoftBank is now dangling Arm’s mega-IPO on Wall Street by the end of March 2023.
On the side of currencies and oil
The yen stabilized against the dollar, at a rate of one dollar for 115.51 yen around 00:55 GMT against 115.55 yen on Tuesday at 21:00 GMT. The Japanese currency had depreciated significantly against the greenback on Tuesday.
One euro traded for 131.88 yen against 131.90 yen the day before, and the European currency was also stable against the American currency, at the rate of one euro for 1.1416 dollar against 1.1415 dollar on Tuesday at 21:00 GMT.
Oil prices rose again on Wednesday morning in Asia, after having fallen sharply the day before: around 00:45 GMT, the price of a barrel of American WTI regained 0.39% to 89.71 dollars.
etb-kh/elm