Tokyo stocks rose Friday with SoftBank soaring to a 17-year-high, while traders took in their stride sacked FBI chief James Comey's testimony that Donald Trump asked him to drop a probe into the administration's Russia links. Telecoms giant SoftBank surged 7.42 percent to 9,476 yen, its highest since May 2000, after saying it will buy US firm Boston Dynamics from Google parent Alphabet. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The company is a spin off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that makes sophisticated robots designed to run and manoeuvre like animals. SoftBank was also boosted by an upbeat outlook from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, of which the Japanese firm is a major shareholder. Tokyo's rise tracked Wall Street after Comey's testimony on his firing by Trump and links to the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.
Comey testified that Trump asked him for "loyalty" and to drop a criminal investigation into his former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn. Although the testimony painted an unflattering picture of the president, analysts said most of the information had already been aired in news reports and the disclosures themselves were not disturbing enough to hurt market sentiment.
"The testimony ended without a fresh storm of controversy," Toshikazu Horiuchi, a broker at Tokyo's IwaiCosmo Securities, told AFP. "It does not mean an end to the scandal, but the case has turned an important corner." Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei rose 0.52 percent, or 104.00 points, to finish at 20,013.26. It lost 0.81 percent over the week. The broader Topix index of all first-section issues ended up 0.08 percent, or 1.25 points, at 1,591.66. It fell 1.27 percent over the week. Shares were also lifted by a rise in the dollar to 110.17 yen from 109.81 yen in New York.
The British pound fell sharply as Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party lost its Westminster majority, leaving a hung parliament and throwing the country into political uncertainty days before the start of sensitive Brexit negotiations. Sterling fetched $1.2655 in Asia Friday afternoon, down from above $1.29 mark a day earlier. Investors are now looking to the Federal Reserve's policy meeting next week, while Japan's central bank also meets.
Automaker Nissan inched up 0.04 percent to 1,076.5 yen while Hitachi slipped 0.14 percent to 678.3 yen. Banks were up on hopes for higher interest rates after the European Central Bank offered a first hint at ending its easy money policy. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial climbed 1.61 percent to 734.7 yen and rival Mizuho rose 1.16 percent to 199.7 yen.
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