The Japanese stock market is rising for a second straight day on Tuesday despite the absence of fresh cues from Wall Street, which was closed overnight for a holiday. Hopes for economic recovery as Japan prepares to start vaccinations against the coronavirus from Wednesday lifted the market.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is advancing 372.28 points or 1.24 percent to 30,456.43, after touching a high of 30,487.65 earlier.
Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining more than 2 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is rising almost 3 percent. Among automakers, Honda is adding 0.4 percent, while Toyota is declining more than 1 percent.
In the tech space, Advantest and Tokyo Electron are rising more than 2 percent each. In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are gaining more than 4 percent each.
The major exporters mostly lower on a weaker yen. Canon is lower by more than 2 percent, Mitsubishi Electric declining almost 1 percent and Panasonic is down 0.5 percent, while Sony is rising more than 2 percent.
Among the other major gainers, Screen Holdings is rising more than 5 percent and Concordia Financial is gaining almost 5 percent, while M3 and Mitsui OSK Lines are higher by more than 4 percent each.
Conversely, Japan Steel Works is losing more than 8 percent, Dentsu Group is lower by more than 4 percent and Unitika is declining 3 percent.
In economic news, Japan will see December results for its tertiary industry index today.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the mid 105 yen-range on Tuesday.
Overnight, the U.S. were closed for the President's Day holiday.
The major European markets ended higher on Monday. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 gained 2.5 percent, France's CAC 40 advanced 1.5 percent and Germany's DAX gained added 0.4 percent.
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