HONG KONG — Japan’s Nikkei 225 share benchmark topped 40,000 on Monday for the first time as strong demand for technology shares keeps pushing the index higher.
By midday in Tokyo, the index
JP:NIK
had gained 0.8% to 40,226.83.
Shares in computer-chip related companies rallied, with Renesas Electronics Corp.
6723,
jumping 5.8% and Advantest Corp.
6857,
up 3.9%. Olympus
7733,
gained 7.4%.
Shares in Japan have tracked gains in other markets driven by expectations for strong demand for technology associated with artificial intelligence.
They’ve also been boosted by continued easy credit policies that has the Bank of Japan pumping money into the economy to help support growth. Those policies have kept the Japanese yen relatively weak against the U.S. dollar and other major currencies, boosting profits of exporters.
Tokyo’s rally followed broad gains Friday on Wall Street, where the S&P 500
SPX
rose 0.8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
added 0.2% and the Nasdaq composite
COMP
climbed 1.1%.
Excitement around artificial-intelligence technology helped drive the advance. Dell
DELL,
soared more than 30%.
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