TOKYO: Tokyo stocks rallied Wednesday morning after another record close on Wall Street with investors eyeing the latest financial results from major Japanese firms including Toyota and mobile carrier SoftBank.
The Nikkei 225 index ended the early session within spitting distance of the key 20,000 mark, a level it last crossed in December 2015.
A drop in the yen buoyed markets, as it boosted the outlook for exporters' profitability.
A solid US jobs report late last week has further strengthened the odds that the Federal Reserve will stick to a planned course of two more interest rate hikes in 2017, seen as a positive for the dollar.
The greenback fetched 113.75 yen on Wednesday, slightly down from 114.04 yen in New York, but still up from recent levels.
"The US economy is doing well, and a June rate increase is seen as almost certain," Hiroyasu Iida, head of the investment research center at Aizawa Securities in Tokyo, told Bloomberg News.
"Considering that the yen was trading at 117 per dollar at the start of the year, Japanese stock indexes still have room to rise."
Tokyo picked up a strong lead from New York, where the tech-heavy Nasdaq finished at a fresh record as Apple become the first company to close above $800 billion in market capitalisation.
On the downside, traders were wary as North Korea's ambassador to Britain told Sky News that his nation would go ahead with its sixth nuclear test "at the place and time as decided by our supreme leader, Kim Jong-Un".
At the Wednesday break, Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei was up 0.30 percent, or 60.06 points, at 19,903.06, while the broader Topix index of all first-section issues edged up 0.23 percent, or 3.57 points, to 1,585.34.
Loss-hit automaker Mitsubishi Motors surged 7.92 percent to 763 yen after it forecast a net profit for the current fiscal year.
Toyota slipped 0.28 percent to 6,118 yen ahead of its earnings report due after markets close.
Small-car maker Suzuki rose 0.53 percent to 4,882 yen, after a report said the company will invest some 100 billion yen in a new production line at one of its plants in India.
SoftBank rose 1.46 percent at 8,702 yen ahead of its own earnings release, and after a report said it was close to announcing the fundraising close for its massive technology fund.
The Japanese telecoms giant said last year it hoped to raise as much as $100 billion for a new technology investment fund it has set up in partnership with Saudi Arabia.
The fundraising close will be announced as soon as next week, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
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