Tokyo stocks open higher extending US gains

Business Desk: Dhaka, Mar-06,

Tokyo stocks opened higher on Monday, tracking Wall Street rallies that were helped partly by a slide in Treasury bond yields.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.91 percent, or 253.70 points, at 28,181.17 in early trade, while the broader Topix index added 0.66 percent, or 13.35 points, to 2,032.87.

Following US rallies, “Japanese shares are likely to start with (the Nikkei index’s) gains to above 28,000 levels,” said chief strategist Takashi Hiroki of Monex said in a note.

After that, trade will likely be “in a narrow range as there are lots of factors” that could move the market this week, he added.

Those include US payroll data on Friday and the Bank of Japan’s two-day policy meeting from Thursday which will be the last for governor Haruhiko Kuroda.

The dollar fetched 135.80 yen in Asian trade, against 135.83 yen in New York late Friday.

SoftBank Group was up 3.15 percent at 5,731 yen after UK-based Arm, a chip design firm it owns, said it chose New York for an initial public offering this year.

Toyota was up 1.30 percent at 1,909 yen, Sony Group was up 2.25 percent at 11,805 yen, and chip-testing equipment maker Advantest was up 1.99 percent at 11,270 yen.

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