Japan's Nikkei rallies as AI demand outlook brightens
Japan's Nikkei rallies as AI demand outlook brightens Updates with closing prices, analyst comment in paragraph 5
By Rocky Swift
TOKYO, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei share gauge rallied on Wednesday on renewed optimism over demand in the red-hot AI sector.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 .N225 advanced 0.85% to close at 64,621.24, paring an earlier gain of more than 2%. The broader Topix .TOPX rose 0.86% to 4,043.73.
US shares rose overnight, while AI-related sentiment was boosted by SpaceX's first profit as a public company.
Separately, ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent were reported to have ordered more than 3 million Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 GPUs worth over $35 billion.
Japan's exports in September rose 16.7% from a year earlier, government data showed on Wednesday, lower than forecast but still demonstrating resilient demand for semiconductors and AI-related products.
"The stock market appears to have reacted positively to the fact that the revenue and EPS in these results exceeded market expectations," Maki Sawada, an equities strategist at Nomura Securities, said about the SpaceX announcement.
Market breadth was positive, with 152 of the 225 names on the Nikkei higher and 71 lower.
The largest percentage gainers in the index were Resonac Holdings 4004.T, up 5.26%, followed by JX Advanced Metals 5016.T, 4.13% higher, and Mitsui Kinzoku 5706.T, which gained 3.77%.
The largest losers were Shift 3697.T, down 3.52%, followed by Shiseido 4911.T, 2.64% lower, and Sapporo Holdings 2501.T, which lost 2.25%.
(Reporting by Rocky Swift in Tokyo; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Mrigank Dhaniwala)