Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.6 percent to a seven-week closing high on Friday, with exporters such as Canon Inc advancing on a softer yen and receding pessimism about US business conditions. Still, caution prevailed in thin trade, as investors moved to the sidelines ahead of earnings results from Citigroup later in the day and Japanese companies next week.
"The market lacks direction. It has been moved mainly by index-related trades, in which shares are traded regardless of their individual merit," said Nagayuki Yamagishi, investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities. Japan's earnings season will also get into swing next week, with steelmaker JFE Holdings Inc and video game maker Nintendo Co Ltd among the first major companies to give an outlook for this business year.
"US earnings are not over yet, and we also want to wait to see how much the market has priced in earnings by Japanese companies," said Naoteru Teraoka, general manager of the investment management division at Chuo Mitsui Asset Management. "The market is thought to have priced in a weak outlook to a certain degree, but we cannot be certain until we actually see how it reacts."
The benchmark Nikkei average ended up 78.15 points at 13,476.45, the highest close since February 29. It gained 1.2 percent for the week. The broader TOPIX index rose 0.8 percent to 1,304.06. The dollar inched down 0.1 percent to 102.40 yen hovering near a one-month high of 102.95 yen hit in early April.
Exporters rose, with Canon adding 2.4 percent to 5,070 yen and chip gear maker Tokyo Electron Ltd climbing 2.9 percent to 6,670 yen, the biggest contributor to the Nikkei. Toyota Motor Corp, Japan's biggest automaker, gained 2 percent to 5,110 yen.
Isuzu Motors Ltd rose 4.3 percent to 509 yen after Lehman Brothers analyst Tsuyoshi Mochimaru raised his rating on the truck maker to "equal weight" from "under weight". Drugmakers were among the day's top drags on the Nikkei, with Astellas Pharma Inc down 2.8 percent to 4,080 yen and Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd falling 2.5 percent to 2,900 yen.
In Osaka, Nintendo Co Ltd jumped 4.6 percent to 55,000 yen after the videogame maker said on Thursday it had sold 720,000 units of its Wii game console in the United States in March, its best non-holiday performance ever.
Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" for the Wii was the top-selling game of the month, moving 2.7 million copies in the United States, the company said, citing figures from market research firm NPD. Trade slowed on the Tokyo exchange's first section, with 1.6 billion shares changing hands, compared with last week's daily average of 1.9 billion.Advancing stocks beat decliners by 969 to 606.
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