Comments
Japan's Nikkei share average rose on Wednesday morning on a weak yen, while Hitachi Ltd jumped after a Nikkei report that it plans to sell Hitachi Koki Co and a portion of Hitachi Kokusai Electric for a total of more than 100 billion yen.
Shares of Hitachi surged 4.7 per cent, Hitachi Koki Co soared 9.7 per cent and Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc rose 3.0 per cent.
At midmorning trade, the Nikkei gained 0.4 per cent to 16,802.97, helped mainly by advances for exporters and financial stocks.
“I am not too bullish about the Japanese market going forward before interim earnings, but if the yen stays on the weak side, the market should be supported for now,” said Isao Kubo, equity strategist at Nissay Asset Management. He said that the market will likely stay in a narrow range through the week as investors stay cautious before the release of U.S. jobs data on Friday.
Kubo added that investors' focus will turn to corporate earnings reports, starting later this month, for the first half of the fiscal year ending in March 2017.
On Wednesday, Toyota Motor Corp rose 1.1 per cent, Nissan Motor Co gained 1.5 per cent, and Advantest Corp climbed 1.7 per cent after the dollar rose to a three-week high of 102.965 yen overnight, before edging down 0.2 per cent to 102.705 yen.
Brokerages were higher, with Nomura Holdings rising 1.3 per cent and Daiwa Securities 1.0 per cent.
The broader Topix gained 0.6 per cent to 1,347.98 and the JPX-Nikkei Index 400 rose 0.6 per cent to 12,064.37.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.