Japan shares higher at close of trade; Nikkei 225 up 0.36%

Investing.com – Japan equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Chemical, Petroleum & Plastic , Power and Transport sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 added 0.36%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Nikkei 225 were Nikon Corp. (T: 7731 ), which rose 7.55% or 96.00 points to trade at 1,368.00 at the close. Asahi Kasei Corp. (T: 3407 ) added 4.11% or 42.00 points to end at 1,064.00 and Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp (T: 9432 ) was up 4.04% or 146.00 points to 3,760.00 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Nippon Express Co., Ltd. (T: 9147 ), which lost 5.79% or 450.00 points to trade at 7,320.00 in late trade. Mitsubishi Corp. (T: 8058 ) declined 3.61% or 156.00 points to end at 4,168.00 and Marubeni Corp. (T: 8002 ) shed 3.46% or 48.00 points to 1,339.00.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1849 to 1659 and 230 ended unchanged on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The Nikkei Volatility , which measures the implied volatility of Nikkei 225 options, was up 8.71% to 19.97.

In commodities trading, Crude oil for May delivery was up 0.52% or 0.50 to $96.53 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in June rose 0.36% or 0.36 to hit $100.94 a barrel, while the June Gold Futures contract fell 0.42% or 8.20 to trade at $1,929.60 a troy ounce.

USD/JPY was up 0.14% to 124.10, while EUR/JPY fell 0.10% to 134.66.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.19% at 99.95.