The benchmark Nikkei average went up for the first time in five sessions Friday, thanks to a broad-based rise on Wall Street and a weaker yen.
The 225-issue Nikkei average of the Tokyo Stock Exchange gained 76.24 points, or 0.27%, to finish at 28,783.28, after losing 84.49 points Thursday.
The Topix index of all TSE first section issues climbed 17.10 points, or 0.88%, to 1,956.31, snapping its three-session losing streak. The broader index fell 4.36 points the previous day.
A wide range of stocks attracted buying in the early morning, as investors took heart from rises Thursday in all three major U.S. market gauges including the Dow Jones Industrial Average, brokers said.
The popularity of export-oriented shares, such as automakers, on the back of the yen’s weakening against the dollar also boosted the market.
After the ascend, the market lost steam with position-squaring selling emerging ahead of the weekend.
Participants retreated to the sidelines to wait for the U.S. Labor Department’s jobs report for June, to be released later in the day.
Some chip-linked names’ sluggishness reflecting a fall in the Philadelphia semiconductor index the previous day dampened sentiment, brokers added.
“Automakers attracted buying also because of their strong sales in the United States in April-June,” said Kazuo Kamitani, strategist at Nomura Securities Co.
Toyota, Nissan and Honda reported earlier Friday that their new vehicle sales in the U.S. market jumped some 70% year on year in the first quarter of fiscal 2021.
On the other hand, “investor appetite for domestic demand-oriented stocks, such as pharmaceuticals, appears to be waning” as concerns are swelling over the spread of the delta variant of the novel coronavirus ahead of the start of the Tokyo Games later this month, Hirohumi Yamamoto, strategist at Toyo Securities Co., noted.
On the TSE first section, gainers outnumbered decliners 1,773 to 346 while 73 issues were unchanged. Volume rose to 904 million shares from Thursday’s 833 million shares.
Among the bullish vehicle-makers, Mazda soared 6.53% and Nissan jumped 3.61%.
Technology and entertainment giant Sony gained 3.66%, after its chip unit was reported to have filed with local authorities an application for acquiring a land lot in an industrial complex in Kumamoto Prefecture.
Other major winners included tech investor SoftBank Group.
Semiconductor test equipment maker Lasertec tumbled 5.68% in the wake of an investment rating downgrade by JP Morgan Securities Japan Co.
Clothing retail chain operator Fast Retailing bled on the news that French authorities are investigating into its local Uniqlo unit over alleged forced labor in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region in China.
In index futures trading on the Osaka Exchange, the key September contract on the Nikkei average rose 130 points to end at 28,760.
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