Tokyo stocks rose 0.14 percent Wednesday morning after Wall Street notched up record-setting gains on news that the Fed likely will not hike interest rates until at least June and positive signals on Greece.
The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which on Tuesday closed at a fresh 15-year high in a five-day winning streak, added 25.50 points to 18,628.98 by the break.
The Topix index of all first-section issues rose 0.23 percent, or 3.43 points, to 1,511.71.
“We are getting a sense of security from expectations of a delay in US rate hikes,” said Hiroichi Nishi, an equity manager at SMBC Nikko Securities.
But “the market looks overbought in the short-term and so we ll be seeing some profit taking,” he told Bloomberg News.
The Dow and S&P 500 Tuesday bolted to fresh records after Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen pledged a cautious approach to raising interest rates.
“A high degree of policy accommodation remains appropriate,” Yellen told the Senate Banking Committee, as she noted that inflation was still falling and the labour market had yet to recover fully.
The Fed s policy board still “considers it unlikely” that it will need to hike the federal funds rate “for at least the next couple of meetings”, she said.
