Japan stocks set for higher start after Wall Street rises to record closing highs

SINGAPORE — Shares in Japan looked set for a higher start on Monday following overnight gains on Wall Street that took the major indexes to record closing highs.

Futures pointed to a higher open for Japanese stocks, with the Nikkei futures contract in Chicago at 29,715 while its counterpart in Osaka was at 29,690. That compared against the Nikkei 225's last close at 29,507.05.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 hovered fractionally higher in morning trade.

Investors will watch Japanese conglomerate Softbank Group's stock after it announced Monday a plan to buy back up to one trillion yen ($8.83 billion) of its own shares. Softbank on Monday reported a 398 billion yen ($3.5 billion) net loss in the three-month period ended Sept. 30.

All three major indexes on Wall Street advanced to record closing highs following the approval of an infrastructure spending package.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 104.27 points to 36,432.22 while the S&P 500 gained nearly 0.1% to 4,701.70. The Nasdaq Composite advanced fractionally to 15,982.36. Monday's gains left all three major indexes closing at record highs.

The U.S. House of Representatives late Friday passed a more than $1 trillion infrastructure bill. First passed by the Senate in August, the package would provide new funding for transportation, utilities and broadband, among other infrastructure projects.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 94.059 after a recent decline from above 94.2.

The Japanese yen traded at 113.23 per dollar, stronger than levels above 113.5 seen against the greenback yesterday. The Australian dollar was at $0.7415, still off levels above $0.75 seen last week.