The Nikkei remained Friday morning March 18 slightly up, while Wall Street also continued Thursday, March 17 its momentum and the risk of default by Russia has been temporarily ruled out.
Tokyo’s star index, which was up by nearly 3.5% on Thursday 17 March after the unsurprising quarter-point increase in key interest rates by the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed), was still up 0.22% to 26,710.34 points at around 01:40 GMT, and the broader Topix index was up 0.14% to 1,901.76 points.
Investors are not expecting any surprises from the Bank of Japan either, which is expected to keep its ultra-accommodating monetary policy unchanged at midday Friday.
Signs of inflation are now showing signs of acceleration in Japan as well, but it remains modest for now as it is only based on the surge in commodity prices and not on an awakening of household consumption.
The Japanese market was also somewhat reassured by the confirmed payment on Thursday 17 March of interest in USD that Russia had to pay for debts.
The car manufacturer Toyota (-1.12% to 2,013 yen) confirmed on Thursday 17 March more modest production targets than expected for the April-June quarter, due in particular to the continuing shortage of semiconductors.
The Toyota brand, which plans to produce about 800,000 vehicles per month on average over the period, also said that these targets could be further lowered.
The Japanese tire leader Bridgestone (-0.26% to 4,470 yen) announced Friday that its U.S. subsidiary Bridgestone Americas had been the victim of a cyber attack on February 27 through ransomware.
The group explained in a statement that it had restarted its operations in the region once the threat was under control, without specifying the impact on its production in the region.
According to Japanese public television station NHK, Bridgestone had to halt production for about a week at several plants in North America and Latin America.
On the other hand, oil prices continued to rebound on Friday morning, March 18 in Asia, after having risen by more than 8% the day before in front of the lack of progress in the negotiations between Kiev and Moscow to end the hostilities in Ukraine.
Around 01:30 GMT the price of a barrel of U.S. WTI still took 1.57% to 104.60 USD and that of a barrel of Brent North Sea gained 1.24% to 107.96 USD.
In the foreign exchange market, the yen fell against the USD to 118.72 yen per USD at around 01:40 GMT from 118.60 yen on Thursday, March 17 at 21:00 GMT.
The Japanese currency also depreciated against the EUR, which was worth 131.66 yen from 131.54 yen the previous day. The European currency was steady against the greenback at 1.1088 per EUR from 1.1091 per EUR at 2100 GMT.
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