The Nikkei index on the Tokyo stock market closed up 882.70 points, or 1.38%, at 65,018.95 points today, September 18, supported by buying back into large technology shares that had been sluggish earlier, and the index briefly surged more than 2% during afternoon trading after investors took the view that the Bank of Japan, or BOJ, still has a gradual approach to raising interest rates. The BOJ decided to raise its policy rate by 0.25% from 1.0% to 1.25% at today's meeting, in line with market expectations. Shares leading the market higher included the nonferrous metals and electrical appliance sectors, while the electric power and gas sector and the oil and coal products sector declined. Masahiro Ichikawa, chief market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management, said that if the BOJ continues raising interest rates as planned, the direction of prices and interest rates will be stable, and that this factor will encourage businesses to decide to invest in expanding their operations. Meanwhile, Kyodo News reported that the investment mood also received additional support after Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia, took a stance opposing the introduction of new stricter measures on the development of artificial intelligence, in contrast to senior executives at several AI companies in the United States who had earlier called for slowing down the development of such technology.
NVIDIA CorporationNvidia CEO Jensen Huang opposed stricter AI development measures, easing regulatory risk for the AI chipmaker.
BOJ raised its policy rate 0.25% to 1.25%, pushing Japanese government bond yields higher.
