TOKYO: Tokyo shares rallied 1.94 percent Friday, rebounding from a massive sell-off in the previous session stoked by a surging yen and jitters over an end to central bank stimulus.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed up 241.14 points to 12,686.52, although gains were pared after jumping about 3.50 percent in earlier trade. The index lost 6.35 percent on Thursday.
The Topix index of all first-section shares closed up 1.18 percent, or 12.28 points, at 1,056.45.
Thursday's precipitous drop was largely attributed to investor worries over an end to stimulus, particularly the US Federal Reserve's huge monetary easing, which has been credited with propping up global equity markets.
The Nikkei had been up about 80 percent from mid-November levels, peaking around 15,600 in late May as foreign investors jumped into the market on the back of a plan by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to stoke the world's third-largest economy. Dubbed Abenomics, the policy prescription of big government spending and aggressive central bank easing pushed down the yen and sent stocks soaring.
Doubts have begun to emerge over the plan, however, with weeks of wild volatility on Japan's premier bourse shaving about 20 percent off one of the world's best-performing indexes. The Nikkei is still more than 40 percent above its levels in mid-November.
In Tokyo, mobile carrier SoftBank gained 1.20 percent to 5,040 yen while Uniqlo clothing chain operator Fast Retailing gained 1.36 percent to 28,940 yen.
Major exporters ended mixed. Electronics giant Sony slipped 0.36 percent to 1,923 yen and Sharp was down 0.23 percent at 417 yen. Automaker Nissan rose 0.71 percent to 986 yen while Toyota closed unchanged at 5,590 yen.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries -- which makes everything from trains to parts for power plants but is best known for its motorcycles -- rose 4.24 percent to 319 yen.
The firm's board unexpectedly dismissed its president, who was pushing for a possible merger with a rival firm, a rare coup d'etat in corporate Japan.
Tokyo's gains followed a rally on Wall Street, helped by upbeat US retail and weekly jobs data.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 1.21 percent at 15,176.08 on Thursday, shrugging off the dive in Tokyo.
On currency markets, the greenback see-sawed around the 95 yen level for most of Friday's session, weakening from 95.31 late Thursday in New York, but stronger than 94.64 yen seen in Tokyo Thursday.
A cheaper yen benefits Japanese exporters by making them more competitive overseas and tends to push up Tokyo stocks.
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