Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 notched a record high of 44,396.95 on Thursday, mirroring gains on Wall Street overnight on Fed-rate cut hopes and positive inflation data.

One of Nikkei 255's heavyweights, tech investment firm SoftBank Group, jumped past 10% to notch a second straight day of gains. It follows a Wall Street Journal report that OpenAI struck a roughly $300 billion, five-year cloud-computing deal with Oracle, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Oracle shares closed 35.95% higher Wednesday stateside after the cloud giant reported gobsmacking cloud demand numbers. Oracle now sees $18 billion in cloud infrastructure revenue in fiscal 2026, with the company calling for the annual sum to reach $32 billion, $73 billion, $114 billion and $144 billion over the subse

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