{"id":18472,"date":"2026-05-07T09:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T09:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/18472\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T09:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T09:32:10","slug":"nikkei-225-hits-record-with-tech-gains-amid-global-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/18472\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikkei 225 Hits Record With Tech Gains Amid Global Rally"},"content":{"rendered":"

A global surge in risk appetite<\/a> swept into Japan after long public holidays, driving stocks to record highs on Thursday.<\/p>\n

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Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225<\/a> index surged 5.7% in its first trading session this week, catapulting the index above the psychological 62,000 level.<\/p>\n

The rally was fueled by gains in tech stocks and rising optimism that tensions in the Middle East could cool following reports of progress toward a potential peace deal with Iran.<\/p>\n

Among the top performers were firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including Renesas Electronics and Ibiden, as investors continued piling into companies tied to the artificial intelligence boom.<\/p>\n

Japan’s rally comes after a blistering run in global markets while the country was effectively offline from Monday through Wednesday. <\/p>\n

In the US, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both climbed to fresh record highs this week, while South Korea’s stock market<\/a> also rallied sharply.<\/p>\n

“It seems equity investors are still looking to put money to work and are jumping on positive-sounding news from the Gulf,” wrote analysts at ING in a note on Wednesday. They added that the market reaction looks “a little overblown.”<\/p>\n

Still, they said the broader market mood remains firmly risk-on as investors continue betting that the AI-driven tech rally has further room to run.<\/p>\n

“This window of optimism on a peace deal has allowed money to flow back into equities \u2014 driven by the underlying conviction that the tech sector AI buildout will endure,” added ING’s analysts.<\/p>\n

The shift in sentiment has also rippled through currency markets.<\/p>\n

The US dollar, which had strengthened during the recent geopolitical turmoil as investors sought safety, has softened this week as hopes for de-escalation grew.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Japanese yen surged to a 10-week high, trading near 155 per dollar on Wednesday. That followed days of sharp moves that reignited speculation about intervention from Japanese authorities.<\/p>\n

The speculation was first triggered days before, when the yen spiked to steady near the 157 after crossing the key 160 threshold.<\/p>\n

Tokyo has not publicly confirmed any action, though Japanese officials have repeatedly warned against speculative moves<\/a> in the currency market in recent months. The yen has stayed roughly 7% weaker against the dollar over the past year.<\/p>\n

Analysts at MUFG said any intervention efforts may now be increasingly tied to unpredictable geopolitical developments rather than purely domestic policy factors.<\/p>\n

“The Japanese authorities are more at the mercy of unpredictable factors than in the past,” Derek Halpenny, MUFG’s head of research for global markets EMEA, wrote on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Japan’s stock market<\/a> has been among the world’s hottest in recent years, powered by corporate governance reforms, a weaker yen, and growing hopes that the world’s fourth-largest economy may finally be emerging from decades of deflation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A global surge in risk appetite swept into Japan after long public holidays, driving stocks to record highs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[14648,217,215,4256,14649,10674,1267,8,214,216,1307,277,14650,14651,14652,6625,1101,5294,1358],"class_list":{"0":"post-18472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-analyst","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-business-of-japan","11":"tag-global-market","12":"tag-global-rally","13":"tag-ing","14":"tag-investor","15":"tag-japan","16":"tag-japans-business","17":"tag-japanese-business","18":"tag-japanese-yen","19":"tag-mufg","20":"tag-optimism","21":"tag-potential-peace-deal","22":"tag-speculation","23":"tag-stock-market","24":"tag-us-dollar","25":"tag-wednesday","26":"tag-week"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}