Tokyo stocks close up

A man looks at his watch as he passes an electronic board displaying a graph of currency rates outside a brokerage in Tokyo.

A man looks at his watch as he passes an electronic board displaying a graph of currency rates outside a brokerage in Tokyo.

Published Apr 15, 2014

Share

Tokyo - Tokyo stocks rose 0.62 percent Tuesday after a rally on Wall Street and as the yen weakened against the dollar in response to upbeat US economic data.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index added 86.65 points to finish at 13,996.81, while the Topix index of all first-section shares climbed 0.29 percent, or 3.33 points, to 1,136.09.

After heavy losses last week all three main indexes on Wall Street rallied Monday as traders welcomed a solid earnings report from Citigroup and encouraging retail sales data.

The Dow jumped 0.91 percent and the S&P 500 gained 0.82 percent, while the Nasdaq, which lost more than three percent last week, added 0.57 percent.

On Tuesday, Japanese exporter shares rose as the dollar strengthened to 101.90 yen from 101.82 yen late in New York and 101.55 yen in Tokyo earlier Monday.

However, investors remain edgy owing to renewed tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

US President Barack Obama urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a telephone call to press pro-Moscow groups to lay down their arms in Ukraine after militias took over several government buildings in the country.

“The energy in the market has dwindled, as traders are having a hard time finding decent catalysts,” said SMBC Nikko Securities general manager of equities Hiroichi Nishi.

Factors such as solid Japanese corporate earnings, hopes for more monetary easing by the Bank of Japan, cheap share valuations, and proof of a strong US economic rebound could compel buying, he added.

But none of the factors alone were powerful enough to compel investors into aggressive buying, Nishi said.

“Sell pressure has lessened compared to last week, but renewed buying pressure may take some time to gather momentum,” he said.

Kazuyuki Terao, chief investment officer at Allianz Global Investors, added: “The market is still recovering after last week's steep fall. As such, it's difficult to say if today's action represents a mere 'dead cat bounce' or something more significant.”

The Nikkei fell to a six-month low on Friday, giving up 7.33

percent over the week, its worst weekly performance since a 10

percent decline after Japan's 2011 quake-tsunami disaster.

The headline index is down about 14 percent since the start of this year.

In Tokyo trade, Sony shares rose 0.48 percent to finish at 1,879 yen, while Canon inched 0.03 percent higher to 3,127 yen.

Panasonic ended unchanged at 1,077 yen following reports that it and Fujitsu agreed to form a joint venture of their chip operations.

Fujitsu shares rose 1.02 percent to 589 yen.

(Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this article) - Sapa-AFP

Related Topics: