Nikkei briefly tops 67,000 as AI rally shifts to laggards

2026-06-01

Nikkei briefly tops 67,000

The Nikkei Stock Average rose for a second straight session on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on the 1st, closing at 66,934 to mark a fresh record for a second consecutive trading day. During intraday trading, it topped 67,000 for the first time ever. Buying of artificial intelligence-related shares remains strong, and interest is spreading from leading names to lagging stocks.

Funds flow into laggards

The standout move on the day was the rise in stocks that had lagged the AI rally until around mid-May. Murata Manufacturing climbed 9%, extending sharp gains, and its market capitalisation rose above 20 trillion yen. Its share price has gained 70% since mid-May, helped by expectations that demand for multilayer ceramic capacitors, or MLCCs, for AI data centres will increase.

Long seen as a stock tied to US Apple’s iPhone, the market’s view changed abruptly on rising orders for capacitors used in AI servers. Tetsuro Ii, president of Commons Asset Management, said: 'There may be a large wave that could also be called the 'fourth industrial revolution' that has begun over the past year.'

AI rally widens

Warnings over concentration in AI remain, but there is no sign that investor interest is cooling. Alestra Nimow, head of equity sales at JPMorgan Securities, said: 'Sectors other than AI tend to struggle to attract investor attention and to generate deeper discussion.' He said the market is treating AI investment as a structural shift rather than a passing boom.

In the US stock market on the previous Friday, Dell Technologies surged 33%. Its more than 50 billion dollars in AI server backlog was seen as a positive catalyst, reinforcing expectations that the growth story around AI investment will be reflected in earnings over several years.

In Japan as well, looking at the gains among Nikkei average constituents, Kioxia Holdings stood out from April, when the stock rally accelerated, through May 20, when Nvidia reported earnings. Since May 21, however, Kioxia has slipped to fifth place, while stocks that had not drawn much attention before, including TDK and Minebea Mitsumi, have moved into the top ranks.

The growth of AI stocks that had arrived late is also being supported by transformations at the companies themselves. Dell went private in 2013 and shifted from a PC maker to an IT infrastructure company. TDK has also been shifting its focus from a business centred on magnetic heads to semiconductors. Looking ahead to the AI era, efforts to channel investment into growth areas over several years are now feeding into recent gains.

Hisashi Arakawa, head of portfolio management at Aberdeen Japan, said: 'As the breadth of the stock rally has started to expand, it has become easier to take new positions.' In a market where only a few stocks rise, sector weightings become too high and it is harder to move into new investments, but with interest spreading, he said the firm is 'making test buys in lagging names such as Shin-Etsu Chemical and Recruit Holdings.'

Recruit has begun attracting attention as an 'AI utilisation stock' that uses AI to improve productivity. Its shares had been down 20% this year, but after May 20 they reversed course and rose 10%. On the 1st, NEC rose 6% and Fujitsu gained 8%, with funds also flowing into major IT names that had been seen as lagging in the AI rally. Nomura Research Institute and SHIFT also rebounded, rising 4% each.

Caution over the rapid pace of gains still lingers. Even so, there is a view that as long as the AI rally continues, investors have no choice but to chase the stocks at its core. As the narrow focus on Kioxia gives way to a broader range of targets, conditions are increasingly aligning for a move toward the unprecedented 70,000 level.

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