Tokyo's Nikkei Up on Wall St, Softer Yen
November 13, 2001 9:30:00 PM ET
news.moneycentral.msn.com
TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo stocks were firmer by midday on Wednesday, led by strong gains in Canon Inc and other blue-chip exporters on a Wall Street surge and the softer yen.
News Northern Alliance fighters took the Afghan capital of Kabul and a growing consensus Monday's plane crash in New York was due to mechanical failure lifted both the dollar and U.S. stocks.
``Recent developments raise some hopes for a quick end to the war and belief the crash was not a terrorist act should help ease wary consumer sentiment,'' said Masafumi Nakayama, strategist at Mito Securities.
The benchmark Nikkei average was up 1.39 percent or 139.79 points at 10,170.35, while the capital-weighted TOPIX index put on 0.87 percent or 8.86 points to 1,025.34.
The Nikkei shot up earlier as high as 10,231.16.
Canon, Japan's largest office equipment maker which secures about 70 percent of its total sales overseas and about one-third in North America alone, rose 5.35 percent to 3,740 yen.
NTT DoCoMo, the top issue in terms of turnover, climbed 1.92 percent to 1.59 million yen, bought ahead of its inclusion in the MSCI Japan Standard Index on November 30.
Autos, along with Canon and other major exporters, firmed on the weaker yen, which boosts the overseas earnings of Japanese firms when repatriated. |
