TOKYO, Dec 26 (AFP): Tokyo stocks ended slightly higher Friday after a
quiet week with many investors away for the Christmas holidays, but
market watchers were upbeat as the Nikkei sits at multi-year highs.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange is open for business on Monday and Tuesday before shutting until January 5, the first trading day of 2015.
Analysts pointed to strong performances on Wall Street, falling oil prices, an expected Japanese government stimulus package, and the latest round of Bank of Japan monetary easing which sharply weakened the yen, boosting shares of Japanese exporters.
While Japan's economic recovery stumbled after a sales tax rise in April, there are positive signs on the horizon, said Shigeo Sugawara, senior investment officer at Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Asset Management,
"The virtuous cycle of improving corporate earnings, wage rises, and stronger spending is starting," he said.
"It's just the pace and the strength (that) is underwhelming," he told Dow Jones Newswires.
Hiroichi Nishi, general manager of the equity division at SMBC Nikko Securities, also predicted healthy gains in 2015, saying that "I'm anticipating stocks to rebound after they struggled for some time".
On Friday, the Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange edged up 0.06 per cent, or 10.21 points, to finish at 17,818.96, logging a weekly gain of 1.12 per cent.
The Nikkei is up more than nine per cent this year.
The broader Topix index of all first-section shares rose 0.44 per cent, or 6.24 points, on Friday to end at 1,427.50. It added 1.27 per cent over the week.
Earlier Friday, the market largely shrugged off a barrage of fresh Japanese data that provided further evidence of slowdown in the world's number three economy.
Japan's industrial output suffered a surprise drop in November, turning down after two months of rises.
Meanwhile, Japanese core inflation rate continued to slow in November, dealing another challenged to Tokyo and the Japanese central bank's battle to conquer years of deflation.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange is open for business on Monday and Tuesday before shutting until January 5, the first trading day of 2015.
Analysts pointed to strong performances on Wall Street, falling oil prices, an expected Japanese government stimulus package, and the latest round of Bank of Japan monetary easing which sharply weakened the yen, boosting shares of Japanese exporters.
While Japan's economic recovery stumbled after a sales tax rise in April, there are positive signs on the horizon, said Shigeo Sugawara, senior investment officer at Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Asset Management,
"The virtuous cycle of improving corporate earnings, wage rises, and stronger spending is starting," he said.
"It's just the pace and the strength (that) is underwhelming," he told Dow Jones Newswires.
Hiroichi Nishi, general manager of the equity division at SMBC Nikko Securities, also predicted healthy gains in 2015, saying that "I'm anticipating stocks to rebound after they struggled for some time".
On Friday, the Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange edged up 0.06 per cent, or 10.21 points, to finish at 17,818.96, logging a weekly gain of 1.12 per cent.
The Nikkei is up more than nine per cent this year.
The broader Topix index of all first-section shares rose 0.44 per cent, or 6.24 points, on Friday to end at 1,427.50. It added 1.27 per cent over the week.
Earlier Friday, the market largely shrugged off a barrage of fresh Japanese data that provided further evidence of slowdown in the world's number three economy.
Japan's industrial output suffered a surprise drop in November, turning down after two months of rises.
Meanwhile, Japanese core inflation rate continued to slow in November, dealing another challenged to Tokyo and the Japanese central bank's battle to conquer years of deflation.
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