Japanese shares rise on AI-shares rally, dividend hunt
- The Nikkei was up 1.23% to 66,318.14 by the midday break
TOKYO: [Japanese shares rose on Friday ](https://Japanese shares rise on AI-shares rally, dividend hunt)as AI-related stocks gained and investors bought ahead of Monday’s deadline to qualify for mid-term dividends.
The Nikkei was up 1.23% to 66,318.14 by the midday break. The broader Topix rose 1.19% to 4,123.73.
“Investors picked up stocks to secure the right to dividend payouts, but moreover, the demand for chip-related stocks supported the market,” said Daisuke Hashizume, a senior strategist at Daiwa Securities.
Bank shares, which typically pay higher dividends, were the top performers among the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s (TSE) 33 industry sub-indexes, rising 3.23%.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group rose 3.02%, providing the biggest support for the Topix’s gain.
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group climbed 2.9%.
Chip-related Tokyo Electron and Advantest rose 4.04% and 2.45%, respectively, providing the biggest source of the Nikkei’s gain.
Ibiden, a central processing unit component maker, rose 5.6% after jumping 14.57% in the previous session.
Solid economic data supports the strength of technology stocks, said Daiwa’s Hashizume.
“And the central banks in the United States and Japan made it clear that they would fend off inflation by raising rates, which boosted investor confidence in stocks,” he said.
Technology investor SoftBank Group fell 2.63% after shares of Oracle slipped 3% overnight, following a report that Oracle issued a “force majeure” notice to a Blue Owl unit, the developer of a large New Mexico data center, citing potential delays in securing power for the project.
SoftBank is a co-investor in the “Stargate” infrastructure project together with Oracle and OpenAI.
Of more than 1,500 stocks trading on the TSE’s prime market, 68% rose, 27% fell and 3% traded flat.
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