TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average rose on Thursday, as a softer yen and a record high on Wall Street overnight buoyed investor sentiment.

The Nikkei climbed 0.5% to 39,488.51 by the midday break, after touching its highest intraday level since Nov. 12 at 39,632.3 earlier in the session.

The broader Topix was up 0.2% at 2,745.44.

All three major US stock indexes scored record closing highs on Wednesday, led by technology shares, after upbeat results from Salesforce and comments by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave a late boost to the market.

Japanese technology shares tracked their US peers higher, with chip-testing equipment maker Advantest rising 3.4%. Electronics component manufacturer Fujikura surged 6.2% amid expected demand for data centers.

AI-focused startup investor SoftBank Group was up 2.3%. A fall in yen also gave equities a boost, which slid following media reports that threw doubt on market bets that the Bank of Japan will hike interest rates this month. Heavyweight stocks including staffing agency Recruit Holdings rose 3.6% and Uniqlo parent firm Fast Retailing added 0.7%.

But the Nikkei struggled to push higher, with just under half of its 225 constituents in the red.

“There weren’t many other factors to further drive the rise, so we saw some selling to lock in profits when the Nikkei reached the upper 39,000-point range,” said Masahiro Ichikawa, chief market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management.

Japan’s Nikkei ends higher in choppy trade

Ichikawa expects it might be difficult for the Nikkei to finish trading at 40,000 within the remainder of the year, with investors awaiting more clarity on US President-elect Donald Trump’s policies.

Market players will also be keeping an eye on the next bout of company revenue reports, due to start late January.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries jumped 6.7% to become the top gainer on the Nikkei index.