Tokyo stocks close up 0.20%

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 Aug 12, 2014

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Tokyo - Tokyo stocks rose 0.20 percent Tuesday, as the weaker yen lifted exporter shares and after Wall Street notched up gains.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index added 30.79 points to finish at 15,161.31, while the Topix index of all first-section shares rose 0.41 percent, or 5.18 points, to 1,257.69.

Generally upbeat Japanese corporate earnings have helped lift investor sentiment, as a sharp decline in the yen inflated exporters' profit, analysts said.

“Quarterly earnings have largely come in very decently across the board - about 10 percent ahead of analysts' forecasts,” said CLSA equity strategist Nicholas Smith.

“This certainly bodes well for guidance upgrades after the fiscal half and third quarter. Fundamentally speaking, stock prices should remain well-supported,” he added.

Tokyo's rise followed a positive session for US stocks as investor fears over crises in Iraq and Ukraine began to ease.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.10 percent, while the broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.28 percent.

In Asian currency markets, the dollar rose to 102.29 yen, from 102.21 yen in New York.

On Monday, the dollar rallied against the yen and euro after the unit plunged in the wake of last week's announcement that Washington had authorised air strikes in Iraq.

A weak yen is good for Japanese exporters as it makes them more competitive overseas and inflates their repatriated profits.

In share trading, Sony rose 0.62 percent to 1,774.5 yen, while Toyota was up 0.84 percent to 5,990.0 yen.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries fell 0.26 yen to 374.0 yen following a news report that it will take part in developing the engine for Airbus' new mid-sized passenger aircraft.

(Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this report.) - Sapa-AFP

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