The Japanese market is trading firm on Wednesday with investors picking up stocks amid easing worries about Greece's financial woes following the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou winning a parliamentary confidence vote. The overnight strong close on Wall Street is also aiding sentiment to a notable extent.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index is up 132.4 points or 1.4 percent at 9,592 at present.
Precision instruments, mining, real estate and railway stocks are mostly up with strong gains. Automobile and bank stocks too are trading firm. Shares from pharmaceuticals, electric power and marine transport sections are exhibiting a mixed trend.
NTN Corp., the top gainer in the Nikkei pack, is up as much as 4.4 percent. Shares of Sony Corp. are up more than 3 percent amid easing worries about debt worries in the euro zone.
Okuma Corp., NSK, Daiwa Securities Group, Credit Saison, Taiyo Yuden, Matsui Securities, Advantest and NEC Corp. are also up by over 3 percent.
Dai-ichi Life, Fujikura, Nippon Express, Sumco, Marui Group, Softbank, Mizuho Securities, Oji Paper, J Front Retailing, Toho Zinc, Fujifilm Holding and Nissan Chemical Industries are up 2 to 3 percent.
Bank stocks Mizuho Trust & Banking, Mizuho Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and automobile stocks Honda Motor, Suzuki Motor, Toyota Motor, Nissan and Mitsubishi Motor are also up with strong gains.
Chubu Electric Power, Kansai Electric Power, Tokyo Gas, Osaka Gas, Shinsei Bank and Nippon Electric Glass are trading weak.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar traded in the lower 80 yen level in early deals in Tokyo. The yen is currently trading at 80.22 to the U.S. dollar.
Among other markets in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan are trading notably higher, while Shanghai is up marginally. Markets across the region ended mostly higher on Tuesday.
On Wall Street, stocks moved sharply higher on Tuesday with traders expressing optimism about the outcome of a crucial confidence vote in Greece. Positive reaction to home sales report and bargain hunting after recent sharp losses too aided the surge.
The major averages remained firmly positive going into the close, ending the session near their best levels of the day. The Dow rose 109.6 points or 0.9 percent to 12,190, the Nasdaq jumped 57.6 points or 2.2 percent to 2,687.3 and the S&P 500 ended up 17.2 points or 1.3 percent to 1,295.5.
Major European markets too ended notably higher on Tuesday. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 index ended up 1.4 percent, while the French CAC 40 index and the German DAX index gained 2 percent and 1.9 percent respectively.
Crude oil prices edged higher on Tuesday with a weak U.S. dollar and expectations that George Papandreou's cabinet in Greece would survive a confidence vote. Light, sweet crude for August delivery ended up 54 cents at $94.17 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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