Tokyo's Nikkei stock index rose 1.13 percent Thursday to its highest close since early January as a sharply weaker yen boosted exporter shares, but Sony plunged after warning of a huge annual loss. The benchmark Nikkei at the Tokyo Stock Exchange added 178.90 points to end at 16,067.57, putting the index within reach of last year's closing high. The broader Topix index of all first-section issues rose 0.99 percent, or 12.95 points, to 1,317.91.
Tokyo tracked a strong lead from Wall Street which saw a new Dow record after the US Federal Reserve stuck to its slow-but-steady plans to tighten monetary policy. The Fed also hinted that interest rates could rise more than initially thought as the economy improves, boosting demand for the dollar. Some investors were concerned that the Fed signalling an early rate hike might hurt the stock market, but "with the yen weakening likely to continue ... the negative impact on stocks appears to be limited," Hiromichi Tamura, chief strategist for Japan at Nomura Securities, told Dow Jones Newswires.
On Wall Street the Dow rose 0.15 percent to a new record, the S&P 500 gained 0.13 percent to end just short of its own all-time high and the Nasdaq edged up 0.21 percent. In currency markets, the dollar rose to a six-year high of 108.78 yen, from 108.29 yen in New York on Wednesday. A weaker yen tends to lift Japanese stocks as it inflates exporters' profitability.
Toyota jumped 2.15 percent to 6,445.0 yen, Canon was up 0.65 percent at 3,537.0 yen and Panasonic gained 0.49 percent to end at 1,314.5 yen. Toshiba rose 0.81 percent to 494.5 yen. The giant conglomerate said after markets had closed that it would accelerate a restructuring of its personal computer business, and axe 900 jobs. However, Sony tumbled 8.64 percent to 1,940.0 yen, a day after it warned of a $2.14 billion annual loss, more than four times its earlier forecast. It had dived 12 percent at one point in the morning. The company also said it would not pay a dividend for the first since it listed in Tokyo in 1958.
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