Japan stocks rise as yen slips; market hunting 13th straight win

Tokyo,June-2 Japanese stocks sat a little firmer in early Tuesday trade, with the Nikkei Stock Average up 0.2%, heading toward what would be its 13th straight winning session for the longest streak since early 1988 — when there was no Internet and when East Germany still existed. The Topix was 0.1% higher, with a portion of the market’s gains boosted by the weaker yen, as the dollar rose to ¥124.85, up from ¥124.26 late the previous day. Amid the forex moves, some tech and industrial shares pulled higher, with Hitachi Ltd. and Nidec Corp. up 1% each, TDK Corp. up 1.7%, and Trend Micro Inc. up 1.5%. Stock in NTT DoCoMo Inc. rallied 3.1% after its chief financial officer told the Nikkei business daily that the wireless telecom hopes to lift return on equity to “at least 10%” by the fiscal year ending in March 2018, up from 7.4% currently. Shares of ANA Holdings Inc. rose 1.2% as a separate Nikkei report said a creditor of bankrupt Skymark Airlines Inc. had called for a restructuring proposal without ANA as the sponsor. In the automotive sector, Takata Corp. traded 0.1% higher as a Takata executive prepared to tesify to a U.S. Congressional committee about the company’s faulty airbags. The auto makers were mixed, with Toyota Motor Corp. up 0.7%, Nissan Motor Co. up 0.4%, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. down 0.1% and Daihatsu Motor Co. down 0.2%. Shares of Japan Tobacco Inc. lost 1.9% after a court in Canada ordered its Canadian unit and two other companies to pay a combined $12.4 billion, the biggest such judgment in Canada’s history, according to Agence France-Presse. Japan Tobacco said it would appeal the penalty.

Source:Marketwatch.com