Japan’s shares at fresh 15-year high on weaker yen
Shares on Japan’s main index were up on Friday morning due to a weaker yen against the US dollar and despite a raft of mostly disappointing economic figures.
In Tokyo, the benchmark Nikkei 225 was up 0.24% in early trade at 18,805.50 points.
The dollar was buying 119.36 yen on Friday, after rising overnight from a Thursday low of 118.68 yen in the US .
A weaker yen helps Japan’s big exporters.
It makes their products more affordable overseas and gives a boost to their earnings.
However, latest figures from Japan’s Ministry of Economy showed that Japanese households had cut spending more than expected in January and that retail sales had fallen for the first time in seven months.
Fresh data also showed that Japan’s core inflation had slowed to 0.2% in January compared with a year earlier.
Japan had suffered nearly two decades of deflation and the Bank of Japan’s target for inflation is 2%.
Factory output was one bright spot for investors, with official numbers showing it had jumped 4% in January from a month earlier, exceeding analysts’ expectation.
Though not all analysts were upbeat about the factory data, either.
“While industrial production surged in January, firms are predicting a renewed decline in coming months as consumer spending remains sluggish,” Japan-based economist Marcel Thieliant of Capital Economics said.
Elsewhere in Asia
Markets were lacklustre across the rest of Asia as energy-related shares fell on lower oil prices.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 0.04% at 24,891.40, while the Shanghai Composite index was down 0.13% at 3,293.95.
Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was flat, up just 0.09% at 5,913.90.
Sydney-listed shares in Woolworths, one of Australia’s largest supermarket chains, were down as much as 8% after the firm posted disappointing results for the six months to December.
The supermarket giant announced on Thursday a 3.1% fall in profits to 1.3bn Australian dollars ($1.01bn).
Melbourne-based Treasury Wine Estates (TWE), the maker of Penfolds and one of the world’s biggest listed wine companies, had some good news though, posting a net profit of 42.6m Australian dollars ($33.21m) for the six months to December.
The results mark a turnaround from the A$100.9m loss it posted for the full 2014 financial year.
In Korea, the Kospi share index was down 0.47% at 1,983.65 points.
Source: bbc – Japan’s shares at fresh 15-year high on weaker yen
