Tokyo Close: Advantest Took Gold—and Reached Back for the Chip Army

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Tokyo Closing Dispatch · 11 November 2026 · 15:30 JST close

The Nikkei added 789 points as semiconductors answered yesterday’s question: could Tokyo remain above 60,000 while SoftBank weakened?

Today’s answer was yes—for one session.

Advantest, Tokyo Electron and Kioxia all advanced while SoftBank Group fell after its earnings release. The Nikkei still closed above 61,000, and the Nikkei Semiconductor Stock Index gained 4.48%.

The Close in 60 Seconds

• The Nikkei 225 closed at 61,248.59, up 789.01 points (+1.31%), its third consecutive advance.
• TOPIX closed at 3,929.39, up 35.68 points (+0.92%).
• The Nikkei Semiconductor Stock Index rose 4.48% to 18,831.80.
• Advantest closed at ¥31,440, up ¥1,750 (+5.89%).
• Tokyo Electron closed at ¥9,272, up ¥266 (+2.95%).
• Kioxia Holdings closed at ¥9,571, up ¥503 (+5.55%).
• SoftBank Group closed at ¥3,765, down ¥107 (−2.76%), after falling as low as ¥3,465 in the morning.
• From the 6 November close of 57,434.77, the Nikkei has recovered 3,813.82 points, or 6.64%, in three sessions.

Yesterday’s Question Was Answered

Yesterday’s closing note ended with a specific test: could Advantest and Tokyo Electron keep the Nikkei above 60,000 if SoftBank weakened after its earnings?

Today provided a provisional answer.

SoftBank fell, but the semiconductor complex took over the index engine. Advantest rose 5.89%, Tokyo Electron added 2.95%, Kioxia gained 5.55%, and the dedicated Nikkei semiconductor index climbed 4.48%.

That matters because yesterday’s 1,684-point rally was highly concentrated. SoftBank, Advantest and Tokyo Electron supplied roughly 925 points of the move. Today, the leadership changed without the index collapsing.

This was not proof of a new bull leg. It was evidence that the rebound had a second engine.

Advantest Took Gold

Advantest finished only ¥30 below its intraday high of ¥31,470. Using the current Nikkei divisor and price-conversion factor, its ¥1,750 rise contributed roughly 378 points to the Nikkei—nearly half of the index’s total gain.

There was no new Advantest disclosure today. The market was extending a repricing already supported by the company’s 28 October forecast.

Advantest expects FY2026 sales of ¥1.863 trillion, up 65.1% year on year, and operating income of ¥967 billion, up 93.7%, with an operating margin of 51.9%. The company says demand for high-performance AI semiconductors and increasingly complex test requirements is pushing the tester market toward a new record.

That is the fundamental case behind the samurai armour.

The risk is equally clear: when one stock supplies almost half of the Nikkei’s daily gain, index strength becomes dependent on a very expensive and very volatile leader.

The Two Wounded Samurai Were Actually Green

The arrows in the illustration do not mean that Kioxia and Tokyo Electron fell today. Both rose.

They represent the damage left by the recent AI and semiconductor selloff.

Kioxia closed at ¥9,571, but remained 28.9% below its 30 October close of ¥13,470. Tokyo Electron closed at ¥9,272, still 7.6% below its 29 October close of ¥10,035.

Today’s gains were therefore recovery moves inside a damaged chart structure, not a clean return to prior highs.

The image shows Advantest pulling both companies toward the empty third-place podium because the rebound becomes more credible when memory, wafer-fabrication equipment and test equipment recover together.

One champion can move an index. A functioning supply chain makes the move more durable.

SoftBank’s Silver Medal Belongs to Yesterday

SoftBank’s figure is smiling on the second-place podium, but that is intentionally unfair.

The medal belongs to yesterday, when SoftBank jumped 13.88% and delivered the largest positive contribution to the Nikkei. Today, after the group reported a ¥1.115 trillion July–September net loss attributable to owners of the parent, the stock opened sharply lower and fell 10.5% at its morning low.

Yet it did not stay there.

SoftBank recovered from ¥3,465 to close at ¥3,765, only 2.76% below the previous day. That rebound from the low helped remove a major drag from the index, even though the stock remained a negative contributor.

The mischievous smile in the illustration is therefore not a claim that SoftBank won today. It captures the company’s unusual position: yesterday’s hero, today’s problem, and still too large to ignore.

What International Readers May Miss

The Nikkei is price-weighted. A small group of high-priced constituents can dominate the headline index even when their economic weight is very different.

Today’s broad-market confirmation was better than yesterday’s concentration alone:

• TOPIX rose 0.92%;
• the Nikkei Semiconductor Stock Index rose 4.48%; and
• the Nikkei closed above 61,000 despite SoftBank’s decline.

But the leadership was still narrow enough to require caution. Advantest alone supplied roughly half of the Nikkei’s gain. The headline was stronger than the average stock experience.

TokyoBrainie’s View

My read is that today improved the quality of the rebound.

Yesterday, SoftBank’s pre-earnings surge made the 60,000 recovery vulnerable to one company’s post-close result. Today, the market absorbed that earnings shock and reassigned leadership to semiconductor names with clearer operating exposure to AI demand.

The most important development was not simply that Advantest rose.

It was that Tokyo Electron and Kioxia joined the move while SoftBank weakened. That reduced one specific concentration risk from yesterday, even as it created another around Advantest.

The third podium remains intentionally shared and unfinished. Kioxia and Tokyo Electron have recovered, but neither has erased the damage in its recent chart.

Counterpoint

Three strong sessions do not erase the preceding selloff.

The Nikkei has rebounded 6.64% from 6 November, and the semiconductor index gained 4.48% today. Those are powerful numbers, but they also describe a high-beta recovery after a violent decline.

Advantest’s weight can exaggerate both directions. SoftBank’s earnings and funding structure remain unresolved. Higher U.S. inflation and firmer rate expectations can still pressure long-duration AI valuations.

Today proved that the rally could survive one weak SoftBank session. It did not prove that 60,000 has become a permanent floor.

What to Watch Next

• 61,390.79: today’s Nikkei intraday high. A sustained break would extend the three-day recovery.
• 60,000: the psychological and structural line reclaimed on 10 November.
• ¥31,470: Advantest’s intraday high. Failure to hold the breakout would expose the index’s concentration again.
• ¥3,465: SoftBank’s post-earnings morning low. A retest would show that today’s recovery was only short covering.
• ¥9,777: Kioxia’s intraday high; the stock closed at ¥9,571.
• ¥9,376: Tokyo Electron’s intraday high; the stock closed at ¥9,272.
• Semiconductor breadth: whether test, memory and wafer-fabrication equipment continue rising together rather than handing the entire burden back to Advantest.

Bottom line

Yesterday, SoftBank carried the index and then handed investors an earnings bill. Today, Advantest took the gold medal—and reached back for the rest of the chip army. The rebound became broader inside semiconductors, but it is still a recovery that must prove it can stand without one oversized hero.

Sources

• Nikkei Indexes — Nikkei 225 official close and intraday range
• Nikkei Indexes — Nikkei Semiconductor Stock Index
• Yahoo Finance Japan — TOPIX
• Yahoo Finance Japan — Advantest
• Yahoo Finance Japan — Tokyo Electron
• Yahoo Finance Japan — Kioxia Holdings
• Kabutan — SoftBank Group daily prices
• Advantest — FY2026 earnings forecast
• SoftBank Group — Q2 FY2026 earnings materials

This article is independent market research and commentary, not investment advice. The illustration is satire; its podium positions are not a literal ranking of daily returns.

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