TOKYO, Aug 19 - Japan's Nikkei average <.N225> rose more than one percent by late afternoon on Tuesday after hitting a fresh one-year high earlier as gains on Wall Street fuelled strong buying of Tokyo Electron <8035.T> and other tech shares. In very active trade, investors continued to snap up banks and real estate stocks and other issues heavily dependent on the domestic economy following last week's surprisingly strong Japanese gross domestic product (GDP) data for April-June.
As of 0525 GMT, the Nikkei was up 1.38 percent or 138.29 points at 10,171.26 after climbing in the morning to 10,241.94, its highest since July last year and 35 percent above a two-decade low hit in April. The TOPIX index <.TOPX> rose 1.55 percent to 991.17. "As the market strengthens, anybody who has been left out or hasn't participated faces a lot of pressure to come in," said Robert Jameson, senior sales trader at Instinet Japan. "The market being up so much is helping out the banks in a number of ways. And that's an area where people are probably quite under-represented," he said. Japan's top four banks -- Mizuho Financial Group <8411.T>, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group <8316.T>, Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group <8306.T> and UFJ Holdings Inc <8307.T> -- were the four most active issues in terms of value on the main board. Mizuho, up 8.55 percent at 127,000 yen, was the best performer. The other three were all up at least three percent.
Chip stocks rallied after shares of U.S. microchip maker Advanced Micro Devices surged 14 percent after Barron's said its shares may be poised to rise given the success of its new Opteron chip, which Barron's said was getting rave reviews. Toshiba Corp <6502.T>, Japan's biggest chip maker, was up 6.9 percent at 480 yen while chip equipment giant Tokyo Electron firmed 3.9 percent to 7,730 yen. Elsewhere, top property developer Mitsui Fudosan Co Ltd <8801.T> put on 5.89 percent to 953 yen. Second-largest Mitsubishi Estate Co <8802.T> rose 6.22 percent to 1,008, helping the sector subindex <.IRLTY.T> throw on nearly five percent. UBS upgraded Japan's top three real estate firms to "buy2" from "neutral2", citing expectations that Tokyo's office market will gradually improve and the GDP data, which it said indicates the outlook for office demand is "not as dim as it was".
Trading was very active, with 1.016 billion shares changing hands on the Tokyo bourse's main board by the midday break. It was the highest morning total since July 3, when trading topped two billion shares for the first time since 1989. As of 0525 GMT, more than 1.6 billion shares had traded.//