Tokyo stocks close up 0.68%
Tokyo stocks rose 0.68 percent in quiet trade Friday as a weaker yen boosted exporter shares following a mixed session on Wall Street.
The Nikkei 225 index added 98.74 points to finish at 14,516.27, while the Topix index of all first-section shares climbed 0.58 percent, or 6.78 points, to 1,173.37.
Most regional markets were closed Friday for the long Easter weekend.
Trading volume was low with many investors sticking to the sidelines after the Nikkei's 7.3 percent tumble last week, its worst weekly showing since Japan's 2011 quake-tsunami disaster.
Exporter shares got a boost as the dollar strengthened to 102.43 in Tokyo, up from 102.39 yen in New York Thursday. A weaker yen inflates the profitability of Japanese exporters.
"I'd like to think that there is a case for buying Japan on earnings, in the run-up to another blowout reporting season, but the market doesn't move unless foreign investors move, and they look like they're enjoying a slow, sleepy Easter weekend," said CLSA equities strategist Nicholas Smith.
On Wall Street, shares were mixed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.10 percent, while the broad-based S&P 500 advanced 0.14 percent and the Nasdaq rose 0.23 percent.
The US market got a lift from Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like Chinese micro-blogging site, which debuted on the Nasdaq exchange Thursday with a 19.1 percent jump despite an initial public offering that went out undersubscribed and lower priced than hoped.
In Tokyo trade, Toyota rose 0.94 percent to 5,564 yen, Sony gained 1.25 percent to 1,932 yen, while Sharp was up 1.47 percent at 276 yen.
Mobile phone carriers ended mixed with SoftBank adding 0.23 percent to 7,623 yen, while NTT Docomo slipped 0.12 percent to 1,579 yen.
-- Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this article --
