Tokyo stocks up 1.39pc by noon

TOKYO: Tokyo shares rose 1.39 percent Thursday morning with the key Nikkei index topping 9,000 for the first time in two weeks after Wall Street gained on better-than-expected manufacturing data, brokers said.

The Nikkei 225 index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange rose 124.85 points to end the morning at 9,080.05. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange rose 9.66 points or 1.25 percent to 780.26.

The Nikkei index recovered to the 9,000 level for the first time since August 18 with the market buoyed by buying on Wall Street overnight, brokers said. A weaker yen versus the dollar also boosted sentiment.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.46 percent after the Institute of Supply Management-Chicago reported that its purchasing managers' index came in at 56.5 in August, above analysts' forecasts.

A reading above 50 indicates growth.

But Japanese trading was sluggish as investors were awaiting the release of key US indicators, including the ISM Manufacturing Index for August due later Thursday and job creation and unemployment data for the month on Friday.

"There is still a lack of buying incentives at home so overseas developments continue to be closely eyed with the focus on the US ISM and jobs data," Hiroichi Nishi, general manager at SMBC Nikko Securities, told Dow Jones Newswires.

Sentiment was also lifted by China's official purchasing managers' index, a measure of sentiment in the manufacturing sector. The August reading rose to 50.9 from 50.7 in July.

However, while the news will come as some relief that the world's number two economy is less likely heading for a hard landing, it also showed that manufacturers' costs continued to rise.

On the Tokyo foreign exchange market, the dollar fetched 76.96 yen Thursday morning against 76.62 in New York late Wednesday. The euro changed hands at $1.4370 against $1.4374.

Sony rose 2.16 percent to 1,701 yen.

On Wednesday, the firm said it and its two rivals Toshiba and Hitachi planned to merge their small and medium-sized liquid crystal display businesses for smartphones and tablet computers.

Toshiba gained 1.20 percent to 335 yen with Hitachi up 0.96 percent at 417 yen.

Video game maker Sega Sammy Holdings fell 0.39 percent despite a report the company's consumer business is expected to post a 140 percent on-year increase in operating profit for the current fiscal year.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011