Tokyo shares jump

Japanese shares jumped nearly 3 percent and the yen tumbled on Friday after the Group of Seven agreed on rare joint intervention to curb the soaring currency and calm markets jittery over Japan's nuclear power plant crisis. The move by the G7 to support the country as Japan struggles to cope with its biggest crisis since World War Two comes a day after the yen soared to a record 76.25 in chaotic trading.
Traders said the Bank of Japan was immediately spotted buying dollars. Media reports and traders said it is likely to have bought more than $25 billion. The Nikkei share average rose 2.7 percent, but still closed down around 10 percent on the week, which wiped $350 billion off the stock market.
The drop marked its biggest weekly slide since the 2008 global financial crisis. Trading volume was closer to normal on Friday after the frantic trading earlier this week. Japanese government bond futures were little changed, while the spread on benchmark credit default swaps - the cost of insuring against a sovereign default - tightened. Japanese stocks suffered their worst two-day slide on Monday and Tuesday since the 1987 global stock market crash. That followed a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and devastating tsunami on Friday that killed thousands and crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex about 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.
Shares of exporters, whose profits are eroded by a stronger yen, were prominent among the gainers on Friday as the G7 pushed the currency lower. Fujifilm rose 6.6 percent and electronic firm Kyocera gained 5.2 percent. But traders said much of the gains were from short-covering, and the index may stall next week as investors wait to assess the full economic and human cost of the quake and efforts to prevent a catastrophic radiation leak from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex.
"The main things investors are worried about now are the nuclear plant, the impact of the earthquake and tsunami on firms and power cuts putting pressure on Japanese manufacturers," said Norihiro Fujito, senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities in Tokyo. Benchmark Japanese government 10-year bond futures fell early on, but recovered to close up 0.04 point to 139.74, while the 10-year yield on the cash bond edged up 1 basis point to 1.210 percent.