Nikkei stays up

Japan's Nikkei share average rose on Friday, taking cues from receding worries over the US economy after a spike in export data, though market players remained sceptical it would break through resistance from its 200-day moving average. Gains were trimmed in afternoon trade on investor caution ahead of Toyota Motor Corp's announcement after the market closed that its operating profit this year would fall 35 percent to 300 billion yen ($3.7 billion), with Japan's biggest earthquake on record severely disrupting production and slashing sales.
Although that was far below the consensus of a 434 billion yen operating profit based on the average of 23 forecasts by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, market participants said the outlook was not surprising and that Toyota was probably being conservative.
"Toyota's announcement offered little surprise since that (300 billion in operating profit) somewhat falls in the lower end of a range sell-side analysts had been expecting," said Makoto Kikuchi, chief executive officer of Myojo Asset Management. "People had been expecting downside because of worries about the global slowdown so we're seeing a bit of short-covering. But it's not like we have our own bull factors," said Masato Futoi, head of a stock trading group at Tokai Tokyo Securities.
Yumi Nishimura, a senior market analyst at Daiwa Securities, said that the Nikkei could next week trade around 9,553.69, the settlement price of Nikkei futures and options contracts expiring in June.
The benchmark Nikkei climbed 0.5 percent to 9,514.44 after hitting an intraday high of 9,613.75, rising above its 25-day moving average for the first time in more than a week. The broader Topix gained 0.5 percent to 817.38. Analysts said that the index faces resistance from its 65-day moving average, which comes in at 9,638.56, and its 200-day average at 9,828.45, with many seeing the Nikkei capped below the latter level in the near future.
For the week, the Nikkei has gained 0.2 percent, compared to the US S&P Index , which has fallen 0.9 percent so far this week, and a 2.3 percent fall in ex-Japan Asia-Pacific shares. Shares in Hitachi, which announced what some market players said was a relatively upbeat earnings outlook, fell after briefly touching a post-quake high, in a possible sign of such profit-taking. Hitachi shares dropped 1.1 percent to 464 yen.
Toyota's shares were up 0.9 percent at 3,300 yen, compared with an intraday high of 3,360 yen. Yamaha Motor gained 3.7 percent to 1,415 yen after Citigroup raised its rating to "buy" from "hold", citing a recovery in its earnings. Shares in Takeda Pharmaceutical fell 2.9 percent to 3,665 yen after France's drug safety authority suspended use of the firm's top-selling diabetes pill Actos on Thursday because of concerns of cancer risks.