Tokyo stocks climb 1.0% by break
Tokyo stocks climbed 1.0 percent Friday morning, with exporters boosted by a lower yen as markets await a closely watched US jobs report.
The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange rose 187.99 points to 18,939.83 by the break, while the Topix index of all first-section issues added 0.75 percent, or 11.44 points, to 1,535.16.
Investors were eyeing a monthly US jobs report that if strong enough could support a Federal Reserve interest rate increase, a move likely to boost the dollar against the yen, which is a plus for Japanese exporters.
In forex markets, the greenback slipped to 119.99 yen, from 120.14 yen in New York but it was still up from 119.85 yen in Tokyo earlier Thursday.
The euro remained weak as the European Central Bank said it would begin a 1.1-trillion-euro ($1.2 trillion) bond buying programme next week.
A still-weak yen and details of the ECB easing plan "should push up stocks", said Juichi Wako, a senior strategist at Nomura Holdings.
"If investors take to the weakening yen, they'll turn their attention to exporters," Wako told Bloomberg News.
A weaker yen is a positive for Japanese exporters as it makes them more competitive abroad and inflates profits when repatriated.
Exporters with strong sales in Europe gained ground.
Canon rose 1.31 percent to 3,971.5 yen, while Konica Minolta was up 1.45 percent to 1,255.0 yen.
Shares in Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Holdings jumped 1.85 percent to 3,768.5 yen after the leading Nikkei businesss newspaper reported the non-life insurer had decided to take a roughly 15 percent stake in French reinsurance giant Scor for more than 110 billion yen ($910 million).
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