TOKYO: Tokyo' stocks snapped a four-day losing streak Thursday as exporters got a lift from the cheaper yen, but Toshiba dived on news its troubled US nuclear unit could be headed for bankruptcy.
Toyota, Panasonic and other firms doing business overseas benefited from the yen's drop against the dollar, which came after a forecast-beating US private-sector jobs report.
Official monthly US employment data is due Friday and, with a March interest rate hike widely expected, could give investors an idea about the Federal Reserve's plans for future increases.
"I expect good numbers to come out from the jobs data," said Mitsushige Akino, an executive officer at Ichiyoshi Investment Management.
"The US economy is doing well, and if long-term yields rise as the speed of rate hikes increase, the yen should weaken. Japanese stocks have no reason to fall further," he told Bloomberg News.
The dollar rose to 114.49 yen on Thursday from 114.31 yen in New York, where it briefly touched 114.75 yen.
A weak yen is positive for Japanese exporters as it inflates repatriated profits, boosting demand for their shares.
After four days of losses, Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.34 percent, or 64.55 points, to finish at 19,318.58, while the broader Topix index of all first-section issues gained 0.29 percent, or 4.43 points, to 1,554.68.
Panasonic climbed 1.39 percent to 1,268.5 yen while Toyota rose 1.00 percent to 6,434 yen.
Nintendo turned down 0.66 percent to finish the session at 24,660 yen after several days of gains since its newest Switch console hit stores.
A plunge in oil prices Wednesday hit energy explorer Inpex, which fell 1.21 percent to 1,100.5 yen while Japan Petroleum was off 1.11 percent at 2,649 yen.
Toshiba dived 7.20 percent to 204.8 yen after a news report said Westinghouse Electric, its US nuclear power plant developer, is taking a serious look at bankruptcy proceedings.
Japan's Asahi newspaper also quoted an anonymous senior company official as saying the chances are only 50-50 that Toshiba will make a March 14 deadline to submit an earnings report for the quarter ended December.
Toshiba has been reeling from huge losses from Westinghouse.
The Asahi said Toshiba may suffer tens of billions of yen in fresh losses if the group fails to meet the end-of-2020 deadline for completion of four nuclear plants in the United States.
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