Nikkei 225 Jumps Over 4% as SoftBank Hits Limit Up, Advantest Soars 16%

TradingKey - During the Asian trading session on July 31, the Nikkei 225 Index opened higher and moved upward, with its intraday gains expanding continuously to briefly breach the 65,000-point mark, surging by over 3,000 points during the day. As of press time, the Nikkei 225 Index stood at 64,572.03 points, up 4.37%,

[Source: TradingView]

SoftBank Group was one of the standout performers today, with its shares surging 15.14% to 5,322 yen (approximately $37.39), locked at the daily limit. Semiconductor testing equipment leader Advantest also showed strong performance, with its stock price soaring up to 18% at one point to hit the daily limit; Tokyo Electron rose over 11% at its intraday high. As of press time, Advantest was up 16.95%, and Tokyo Electron rose 8.13%.

[Source: TradingView]

The direct catalyst for this rally came from overnight US stocks. On July 30 local time, Microsoft ( MSFT) and other cloud computing giants reported better-than-expected earnings, reigniting market confidence in the long-term investment prospects of artificial intelligence. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index surged over 8% in a single day, and the memory chip sector staged a broad-based breakout. SanDisk ( SNDK) rose about 26%, while Micron Technology ( MU) rose over 18%.

South Korean stocks also rebounded today. The South Korea Composite Stock Price Index surged over 16% intraday, marking its largest-ever single-day intraday gain. SK Hynix's gains once expanded to 29%, and Samsung Electronics rose over 25%.

Meanwhile, the market's attention is focused on the Bank of Japan's upcoming interest rate decision. In response to the imported inflationary pressures triggered by the continuous weakening of the yen, the Japanese Ministry of Finance conducted a direct 'buy yen, sell dollar' intervention in the New York foreign exchange market on the night of July 30, with the yen briefly jumping about 2% against the US dollar in the short term.

Theoretically, a rapid appreciation of the yen exerts foreign exchange pressure on export-oriented enterprises. However, driven by the spillover effects of the overnight surge in US tech stocks, the Nikkei 225 Index still rose more than 4% today, highlighting the strong pull of the AI computing chain on the Asia-Pacific semiconductor sector.