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Tokyo stocks surged 3.29% Friday on the back of a firmer dollar, upbeat earnings results and a strong lead from Wall Street.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed up 460.39 points at 14,466.16, while the Topix index of all first-section shares gained 2.82%, or 32.78 points, to 1,196.17.
The dollar bought to 99.60 yen in Asian afternoon trade, compared with 99.52 yen late in New York and 98.63 yen in Tokyo earlier Thursday.
The euro bought $1.3209 and 131.56 yen against $1.3208 and 131.45 yen in US trade.
Buying sentiment was supported after a rally on Wall Street fuelled by strong manufacturing data from China, Europe and the United States saw the S&P 500 end 1.25% up at an all-time closing high. The Dow also added 0.83%.
"The Nikkei will likely continue to advance as uncertainties surrounding global economies have waned and expectations for better earnings for Japanese exporters mount on the back of a stronger dollar," Hiroichi Nishi, general manager of equities at SMBC Nikko Securities, told Dow Jones Newswires.
Big-hitters SoftBank and Sharp also helped drive the index higher after impressing with their first-quarter earnings released earlier this week.
SoftBank's net profit more than doubled for the three months to June, while Sharp managed to reduce its loss in the same period thanks to the weaker yen and cost-cutting.
© (C) 2013 AFP
7 Comments
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JeffLee
@kurisupis
No, the term is plain wrong. Money gets printed to meet demand from businesses and consumers, a fact that doesn't change whether there is QE or not or what gov't is in power. QE raises the reserves on banks' balance sheets, which replaces the bonds and other instruments it sold to the BOJ. It's an asset swap. More money might be printed, or maybe not, depends on what kind of demand is floating around in the real economy.
But since most of the recent demand stemming from the QE stimulus is for real estate, there's basically no need to print "money," as in cash. How many leases or mortgages do you know of that are transacted in cash?
Shankun
If you don't agree you should point out why instead of calling others not worthy to be enlightened... It seems like YOU should learn some principles.
randomman
I watch with amusement the comments regarding the daily fluctuations of the Nikkei. Its exactly those phantom beliefs that provides the profit for the "tricky dickies" that take the other side of their trades...
kurisupisu
Yes, right @JeffLee- I couldn't bring myself to explicitly state that the BOJ was electronically creating money; like a puff of smoke from a magician's hand backed up with mirrors and sleight of hand, printing money sounds so unfashionable now-etheric money sounds like a better def? @Shankun Japan a normal country? I don't think so.I do want to reply more but you obviously need to study some basic principles first......
Shankun
Finally NORMAL country. I don't know if you ever heard about one magical word which describe it, so I'll introduce: inflation.
You see, you can learn new everyday even on JToday!
JeffLee
Doubling the monetary base is not "printing money." It's about making more credit available through bank reserves.
kurisupisu
The Nikkei will advance on the money printing that the BOJ is doing.....meanwhile, Japanese consumers see a fall in yen buying power making everything MORE expensive What a crazy country this is.....