[Edaily Reporter KIM JUNG YOU ] The Nikkei 225 Average (Nikkei Index) closed at 68,956.72 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on the 1st, up 3.30% from the previous day. This marks the highest level since August 17 (69,220 yen).

According to the Nikkei, the Nikkei Index’s sharp rise on that day was driven by a widespread perception that the earnings outlook for U.S. memory chipmaker Micron Technology—which had been the focus of investor attention—was positive news, leading to a concentrated inflow of funds into artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor-related stocks.

Among individual stocks, Advantest surged 10%, while Tokyo Electron and Kioxia Holdings each rose 6%, showing strong performance. The index points contributed by these three stocks alone accounted for nearly half of the Nikkei’s total gain.

Earlier, on the 30th of last month (local time), U.S.-based Micron announced after the market closed that its revenue for the September–November quarter would reach approximately $61.5 billion—a 4.5-fold increase from the same period last year. This figure significantly exceeds the forecast of $57.4 billion.

This is due to continued strong demand for key memory products—such as High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), which is created by stacking DRAM chips for short-term storage—as U.S. hyperscalers (large cloud companies) continue their massive investments in AI.

On the 1st, in the Korean market, shares of SamsungElectronics(005930)and SK hynix(000660) —which, like Micron, focus primarily on DRAM—faced downward pressure at one point. This was driven by concerns that excessive investment competition could dampen strong earnings, given that both companies had already announced large-scale capital expenditure plans.

However, the interpretation in the Tokyo market was slightly different. Kioxia, a company specializing in NAND flash memory for long-term storage, plans to invest an average of 470 billion yen annually in capital expenditures over the three years through March 2029—a relatively small scale compared to Micron.

Kazuyoshi Saito, a senior analyst at Iwai Kasumo Securities, told the Nikkei: “The scale is not large enough to raise concerns about a deterioration in NAND supply and demand, and it is highly likely that Kioxia’s capital expenditure burden will not pose a significant obstacle to its earnings.”

He added, “Given that the Tokyo market is home to a large number of semiconductor manufacturing equipment companies, expectations of benefits from Micron’s increased capital investment have spread throughout the entire market.”