Japan's Nikkei gains as chip-sector shares track US peers higher

By Kevin Buckland TOKYO, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Japan’s Nikkei share average rose on Wednesday, led higher by chip-sector stocks, tracking an advance among U.S. peers on Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei (.N225) added 0.3% to 50,559.01, as of 0150 GMT, on course for a fourth consecutive winning session. The biggest boosts to the index came from heavily weighted semiconductor equipment makers Advantest (6857.T) and Tokyo Electron (8035.T) , which added a combined 119 points to the Nikkei. The biggest percentage gainer was Tokyo Electron’s smaller rival Screen Holdings (7735.T) , which surged 9.3% after Morgan Stanley MUFG raised its price target on the stock. Overnight, the Philadelphia SE semiconductor index (.SOX) climbed 0.5% to mark a fourth straight session of gains. The S&P 500 (.SPX) touched a record high. The broader Topix (.TOPX) slipped 0.1% to 3,418.75, with insurers, banks and securities firms retreating after rallying on Friday’s Bank of Japan rate hike to a three-decade high. “Japanese chip-related shares are tracking U.S. peers and lifting the overall market,” and the Nikkei’s outperformance of the Topix is evidence of that, said Wataru Akiyama, a strategist at Nomura Securities. With trading thinned by holidays in most overseas markets to end the week, big moves in Japanese equities are unlikely, he said. Japanese markets are open Thursday and Friday as usual. Advantest rose 1.9% and Tokyo Electron gained 2%. Furukawa Electric (5801.T) jumped 2.2%. Chip-sector gains did not translate to bullishness around startup investor SoftBank Group (9984.T) , which lost 1.3%. Financial companies took most of the bottom spots among the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s 33 industry groups. Insurance (.IINSU.T) was the worst performer, down 1.4%. Banking (.IBNKS.T) dropped 0.8% and securities firms (.ISECU.T) lost 0.6%. A rebounding yen against the U.S. dollar continued to weigh on the autos sector (.ITEQP.T) , which fell 0.8%. Toyota (7203.T) sank 1.1%, as did Subaru (7270.T) .