Japan's Nikkei average rose to its highest in nearly five years for a third straight day on Tuesday as investors were upbeat after the central bank conducted its first bond buying operations as part of sweeping stimulus measures announced last week.
The Nikkei advanced 0.3 percent to 13,233.46 after trading as much as 13,331.39, its highest level since August 2008. It was on track for a fifth straight day of gains.
"It's still a quantitative easing market," said a senior dealer at a foreign brokerage in Tokyo. "There is some profit taking after some of the big moves yesterday Small real estate stocks are still getting up there."
The real estate sector, which is seen as the biggest beneficiary of Japan's push to reflate the economy, slipped 3 percent after jumping more than 26 percent in the previous three sessions.
The Bank of Japan promises to inject $1.4 trillion into the world's third-largest economy in less than two years buy buying government bonds across the yield curve as well as riskier exchange-traded funds.
The sweeping measures, which is aimed at ending nearly two decades of deflation and economic malaise, has triggered a wave of buying in Japanese equities.
The benchmark Nikkei has surged almost 53 percent since mid-November, when Shinzo Abe promised expansionist fiscal and monetary policies to revive the world's third-largest economy during his election campaign. He was elected prime minister the following month, and his bold policies have been dubbed "Abenomics".
Financial firms, another sector expected to do well under "Abenomics", remained in demand, with Nomura Holdings, Japan's top brokerage, up 1.4 percent, lender Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group adding 1 percent and consumer financing firm Aiful Corp putting on 0.9 percent.
The broader Topix index was flat at 1,101.82 on Tuesday morning after trading as much as 1,113.10 earlier.
Exporters also fared well as the yen fell as much as 0.3 percent on Tuesday to 99.67 to the dollar, its lowest level since May 2009. Canon Inc, TDK Corp, Suzuki Motor Corp and Olympus Corp rose between 1.8 and 2.6 percent.
Societe Generale highlighted a number of exporters, which it said are "super sensitive" to yen depreciation, including Ricoh Co Ltd, Olympus, Mitsuhisbi Heavy Industries Ltd , Honda Motor Co and Canon.
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