TOKYO: Japanese shares added 0.32 percent in the morning session Friday, the final trading day of the year, as encouraging US economic data lifted sentiment.
The Nikkei index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange rose 26.87 points to 8,425.76 by noon. The Topix index of all first section issues added 0.33 percent or 2.38 points to 724.50.
Investor sentiment improved after fresh data on the US housing market came out better than expected, with other data also providing cheerful signals going into 2012.
The optimistic data boosted US markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 135.63 points (1.12 percent) to 12,287.04.
The broader S&P 500 rose 13.38 points (1.07 percent) to 1,263.02, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite gained 23.76 points (0.92 percent) to 2,613.74.
Trading was thin, as many investors have left the market for the New Year holiday, analysts said.
"It's difficult to see sector trends," Chibagin Asset Management strategist Yoshihiro Okumura told Dow Jones Newswires.
The global market continued to fret over the eurozone debt woes.
Italy scraped through a key bond auction test on Thursday at the end of a disastrous year for the eurozone, raising 7.0 billion euros ($9.0 billion).
That was below the maximum sought of 8.5 billion euros but long-term rates were holding below the danger threshold of 7.0 percent.
The rate on bonds due in 2021 was 6.7 percent -- higher than the level of 5.77 percent for the last similar operation on October 13. The rate on bonds due in 2022, however, was 6.98 percent compared to 7.56 percent in November.
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