Nikkei 225: Bulls back in vogue with 4% “Takaichi Trade”rally

• Nikkei 225 remains supported by macro tailwinds, including aggressive fiscal stimulus under PM Takaichi and a renewed steepening in Japan’s government bond yield curves, both historically correlated with upside in the index.
• A weakening Japanese yen is attracting stronger foreign inflows, with USD/JPY at a 10-month high and foreign net purchases of Japanese equities trending higher, reinforcing bullish pressure on the Nikkei 225.
• Short-term technicals lean positive, with the Japan 225 CFD Index holding above key moving averages and momentum indicators strengthening; a break above 50,730 could unlock the next leg higher towards 51,530 and 52,775/52,830.

This is a follow-up analysis and an update of our prior report, “Nikkei 225: Plummeted towards a key inflection support zone at 49,370/48,450 for potential bullish reversal”, published on 5 November 2025.

The Japan 225 CFD Index (a proxy of the Nikkei 225 futures) has staged the expected minor bullish reversal right at the 49,370/48,450 key inflection support zone as it dropped to an intraday low of 49,099 on 5 November before it rallied by 4.9% to hit an intraday high of 51,514 on 13 November.

Thereafter, it wobbled, erased its earlier gains, and declined by 4.8% to retest the lower limit of the key inflection support at 48,450 on Tuesday, 18 November, on the backdrop of a weaker footing from the US stock market due to fears of overvaluation in Artificial Intelligence (AI)- related stocks.

Interestingly, several localized macro factors remain supportive of the ongoing short- to medium-term bullish trend of the Nikkei 225. Let’s examine them in greater detail.

The “Takaichi Trade” is backed in the front seat as market participants turn their attention to focus on the new Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi’s push on the implementation of an aggressive fiscal policy and a tilt towards lower interest rates to drive economic growth in Japan.

Takaichi’s administration is expected to unveil a new economic package in parliament this week, where the additional supplementary budget for this fiscal year is expected to be at around 20 trillion yen, far bigger than the 13.9 trillion-yen package compiled a year ago by Takaichi’s predecessor.

The higher fiscal stimulus is likely to trigger a boost to domestic consumption in Japan as early as the first quarter of 2026, in turn, causing the Japanese Government (JGB) yield curves (both the 10-year and 30-year against 2-year) to steepen further (see Fig. 1).

The 10-year/2-year JGB yield curve has broken above its prior May 2025 high of 0.82% and currently trades at 0.86%, a 13-year high.

In addition, the 30-year/2-year JGB yield curve jumped to a new record high of 2.44% at the time of writing, surpassing the September 2025 peak of 2.39%.

The major bullish breakout (steepening conditions) of the JGB yield curves (both 10-year and 30-year against the 2-year) since June 2022 has a direct correlation with the movements of the Nikkei 225.

Hence, the continuation of a further steepening of the JGB yield curves is likely to trigger another round of a positive feedback loop in the Nikkei 225.

Another “cause and effect” from the “Takaichi Trade” is a weaker JPY, as the Bank of Japan (BoJ) is likely to face an increased risk of jawboning from the new administration in pushing back the gradual interest rate hikes advocated by BoJ’s latest monetary policy stance.

The Japanese yen has weakened significantly against the US dollar in the past month, where it shot past 154.00 “easily” to trade at a 10-month low of 157.50 per US dollar at the time of writing.

The USD/JPY has been moving in direct union with the Nikkei 225 since September 2025, where the 20-week rolling correlation coefficient of the USD/JPY with the Nikkei 225 stands at a high value of 0.82 as of 20 November 2025 (see Fig. 2).

In conjunction, the 52-week average of foreign investors’ net purchases of Japanese equities listed on the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges has continued to increase from 77.44 billion in the week of 10 October 2025 to 93.98 billion for the week of 7 November 2025 (see Fig. 3).

Hence, a further weakening of the JPY may see a continuation of more foreign inflows to support the bullish trend of the Nikkei 225.

Let’s now shift to Nikkei 225’s potential share price trajectory from a short-term technical perspective, focusing on the next one to three days.

Bullish bias with 49,085 as key short-term pivotal support for the Japan 225 CFD Index (a proxy of the Nikkei 225 futures).

A clearance above 50,730 (also the 20-day moving average) reinforces the potential bullish impulsive up move sequence to see the next intermediate resistances coming in at 51,530 and 52,775/52,830 next (see Fig. 4).

• The price action of the Japan 225 CFD Index has continued to oscillate above its 50-day moving average and a medium-term ascending channel support that has been in place since the 7 April 2025 low.
• The hourly RSI momentum indicator has continued to shape a series of “higher lows” without any bearish divergence condition at its overbought zone (above the 70 level).
• These observations suggest the medium-term uptrend phase of the Japan 225 CFD Index remains intact with a build-up in short-term bullish momentum.

Failure to hold at the 49,085 key short-term support negates the bullish tone on the Japan 225 CFD Index for a slide to retest the 48,450 key medium-term pivotal support.