BANGKOK (AP) — Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 share index jumped as much as 5% to a record on Monday after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s governing party secured a two-thirds supermajority in a parliamentary election.
The landslide victory gives Takaichi a much stronger mandate to pursue market-friendly policies, though the impact on Japan's currency and bond markets may not be quite so positive.
"So overall, as the LDP has gone from a very weak government
that really couldn’t do anything to an extremely strong government now with the supermajority of the lower house, they really could call the shots,” said Neil Newman, managing director and head of strategy at Astris Advisory Japan.
Other markets across Asia also advanced, with South Korea's Kospi surging 4% and some other benchmarks gaining more than 1%.
U.S. futures edged higher after the U.S. stock market roared back on Friday as technology stocks recovered much of their losses from earlier in the week and bitcoin halted its plunge.
The S&P 500 rallied 2% for its best day since May. The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 1,206 points, or 2.5%, and topped the 50,000 level for the first time, while the Nasdaq composite leaped 2.2%.
The combination of a rebound in tech shares, Wall Street’s rally and other upbeat news lifted shares early Monday.
NHK, citing results of vote counts, said Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, alone secured 316 seats by early Monday, comfortably surpassing a 261-seat absolute majority in the 465-member lower house, the more powerful of Japan’s two-chamber parliament. That marks a record since the party’s foundation in 1955 and surpasses the previous record of 300 seats won in 1986 by late Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.
Takaichi's first major task when the lower house reconvenes in mid-February is to work on a budget bill, delayed by the election, to fund economic measures to address rising costs and sluggish wages.
“Japan just delivered the kind of election result markets instinctively embrace because it removes the one thing traders price at a premium: political ambiguity,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
“Politically, the win hands Prime Minister Takaichi freedom of movement and removes the need to bargain every decision down to the lowest common denominator,” he said.
By mid-afternoon, the Nikkei 225 was up 4.6% at 56,729.51, having topped 57,000 for the first time to set a new record.
The dollar weakened slightly against the Japanese yen, trading at 156.62 yen, down from 157.10 yen late Friday.
In Seoul, the Kospi gained 4.2%, to 5,301.36, buoyed by strong buying of tech shares.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index climbed 1.7% to 27,007.81 and the Shanghai Composite index rose 1.3% to 4,117.57. Taiwan's Taiex gained 2%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 surged 1.9% to 8,870.10.
U.S. futures edged higher early Monday, with the contracts for the S&P 500 and the Dow industrials up 0.1%.
On Friday, computer chip companies helped drive the widespread rally, and Nvidia jumped 7.8% to trim its loss for the week, which came into the day at just over 10%. Broadcom climbed 7.1% and erased its drop for the week.
But even with Friday’s surge, the S&P 500 still fell to its third losing week in the last four. Apart from worries about spending by Big Tech companies, which are Wall Street’s most influential stocks, concerns about AI potentially stealing customers from software companies also hurt the market. Software stocks got hit particularly hard after AI firm Anthropic released free tools to automate things like legal services.
Bitcoin, meanwhile, was up 2.2% following a weekslong plunge that had sent it more than halfway below its record price set in October. It has climbed back above $70,000 after briefly dropping close to $60,000 late Thursday.
Prices in the metals market also calmed a bit following their own wild swings. Gold rose 1.8% to settle at $4,979.80 per ounce, while silver added 0.2%.
In early Monday trading, gold gained 1.5% while silver was up 6.2%.
U.S. benchmark crude oil shed 68 cents to $62.87 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 71 cents to $67.34 per barrel.
The euro rose to $1.1851 from $1.1814.
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AP videojournalist Mayuko Ono in Tokyo contributed.
