TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average edged higher on Monday, supported by a pause in recent yen strength and a rebound in property shares, but was held back by sharp declines for heavyweight stock SoftBank Group.
Although market expectations are building for a Bank of Japan interest rate hike next week, traders are unwinding some of last week’s big moves, which saw the yen gain, property shares decline and bank stocks rally.
The Nikkei added 0.2 percent to 50,581.94, with 177 of its 225 constituents rising versus 48 that fell. However, a 3.3 percent slide for startup investor SoftBank Group shaved 124 points from the Nikkei’s advance.
Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing erased another 58 points, with a 1 percent decline due to its massive weighting.
By contrast, the broader Topix gained 0.7 percent to end the day at 3,384.31.
SoftBank is a major investor in OpenAI, and media reports over the weekend said the ChatGPT creator’s CEO Sam Altman had issued an internal “code red” alert after Google’s Gemini 3 appeared to outperform it in several metrics.
Investors had already turned more cautious in recent weeks on the sky-high valuations for many artificial intelligence-linked shares, spurring a bout of heavy selling last month.
“There’s a sense of overheating in high-tech stocks, making them susceptible to selling pressure,” said Fumika Shimizu, an equities strategist at Nomura Securities.
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