Nikkei crosses 42,000 as Wall Street rally spurs sentiment

Japan's Nikkei surged to anor record high during morning tre on Thursday, as a rally in US stocks overnight boosted investor sentiment.

Nikkei was up 0.83 per cent to 42,179.84 by midday break, after jumping over 1 per cent to an all-time intray high of 42,426.77 points. It was first time benchmark index has crossed 42,000-point mark.

broer Topix was up 0.66 per cent at 2,928.30.

Strong performances in all three of Wall Street's main stock indexes on Wednesday kicked off rally. Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed at record high closes as US chip maker Nvidia and or heavyweights gained ahe of inflation data and quarterly earnings reports.

Japan's semiconductor-related shares marched higher with ir US peers, which got a boost from strong quarterly revenue results from contract manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Gains were widespre, with 178 of Nikkei's 225 constituents vancing, including index heavyweights Uniqlo parent firm Fast Retailing, up 1.5 per cent.

Japanese equities have climbed to all-time highs over past two weeks, with analysts citing furr yen depreciation and more clarity on outcome of this year's US presidential election as reasons.

Analysts expect Japanese shares to see furr momentum as companies report earnings this month.

"This earnings season, Japanese corporate earnings are likely to be better than expected because of degree of yen depreciation," Kenji Abe, chief strategist at Daiwa Securities said.

"re may be some furr increases in equity prices as we see good earnings reports from companies," potentially pushing Nikkei as high as 42,600 or 42,700 points, he said.

Among chip-related shares, chip-making equipment giant Tokyo Electron rose 1.2 per cent and Disco Corp climbed about 3 per cent.

Socionext jumped 4.7 per cent to become one of best performers by percentage, just behind Sumco, up 5.1 per cent.

Sony Group came in third, with tech and entertainment conglomerate gaining 3.7 per cent.

(With Reuters inputs)