TOKYO - Tokyo stocks moved towards a record high on Thursday after US chip giant Nvidia revealed bumper earnings.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.72 percent, or 275.27 points, at 38,537.43 in early trade, while the broader Topix index added 0.62 percent, or 16.33 points, to 2,643.63.
The all-time intraday high for the Nikkei 225, reached in 1989 before Japan's asset bubble catastrophically burst, was 38,957.44 before closing at 38,915.87 the same day.
"The Japanese market is expected to start with strong gains as the US Dow index rebounded and Nvidia reported a sound earnings report, which prompted its shares to soar in after hours," senior market analyst Toshiyuki Kanayama of Monex said.
After Wall Street closed and before Tokyo's opening bell, Nvidia announced its quarterly profits soared to $12.3 billion on record high revenue driven by demand for its chips to power artificial intelligence.
Stephen Innes, managing partner of SPI Asset Management, said that "the highly anticipated Nvidia earnings report, which many deemed the investing event of the year or decade, seemingly didn't disappoint".
"Despite concerns about a significant decline in sales in China, Nvidia presented an unambiguously upbeat revenue outlook for the upcoming quarter," he noted.
Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 0.1 percent higher at 38,612.24, and the broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.1 percent, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.3 percent.
The dollar fetched 150.40 yen in early Asian trade, against 150.24 yen in New York.
In Tokyo, SoftBank Group was up 4.85 percent at 8,776 yen, chip-testing equipment maker Advantest was up 4.11 percent at 6,865 yen, and chip-making equipment manufacturer Tokyo Electron was up 3.56 percent at 35,750 yen.
Toyota was up 1.11 percent at 3,467 yen. Shipping firm Mitsui O.S.K. Lines was up 0.84 percent at 5,396 yen.