Japan shares climb on US gains

Feb 8, 2012, 3:11 GMT

Tokyo - Japanese stocks rose Wednesday morning, led by carmakers, after modest overnight gains on Wall Street.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average gained 61.61 points, or 0.69 per cent, to trade at 8,979.13 at the end of the morning session at 11:30 am (0230 GMT).

The broader Topix index was up 5.46 points, or 0.71 per cent, at 778.23.

Toyota Motor Corp surged 3.65 per cent after the carmaker Tuesday raised a net profit outlook for the current financial year to 200 billion yen (2.6 billion dollars) from 180 billion yen it had predicted two months ago. Toyota, however, said its net profit for the October-December quarter declined 13.5 per cent to 80.9 billion yen from 93.6 billion yen in the same period of 2010.

Nissan Motor Co rose 1.72 per cent and Honda Motor Co jumped 1.88 per cent.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.26 per cent Tuesday to its highest level since 2008, amid hope that Greece would agree to additional austerity measures.

On currency markets at 11:30 am, the dollar traded at 76.94-96 yen, up from Tuesday's 5 pm quote of 76.63-64 yen.

The euro was quoted at 101.91-94 yen, up from 100.75-79 yen late Tuesday, and at 1.3246-3248 dollars, up from 1.3147-3148 dollars.