Tokyo, April 21, 2016 (AFP) –
Tokyo shares rose for a third successive session Thursday morning boosted by a weaker yen and another oil price surge, but Mitsubishi Motors was hammered after it admitted falsifying energy consumption tests.
The crisis-hit company’s testing was manipulated to make hundreds of thousands of cars appears more fuel-efficient than they were, it said Wednesday.
The rigged figures were discovered after Japan’s number-two automaker Nissan found inconsistencies in the testing data and reported it. Mitsubishi makes some cars for Nissan.
On Thursday, Japanese transport officials raided Mitsubishi’s research centre in central Nagoya city.
At the lunch break, its shares were untraded but based on sell and buy orders it was set to fall 20 percent, following a 15 percent collapse Wednesday.
However, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index climbed 1.95 percent, or 329.83 points, to 17,236.37, while the broader Topix index of all first-section shares rose 1.48 percent, or 20.25 points, to 1,386.03.
Exporters rallied as the yen, considered a safe investment in times of trouble, retreated on the back of a generally positive outlook across world markets.
The dollar changed hands at 109.75 yen against 109.81 yen in New York. But it is still up from 109.20 yen in Tokyo Wednesday and sharply higher than the levels below 108 touched at the start of the week.
“Since the beginning of this week, with the recovery in global sentiment, the yen has tended to depreciate to nearly 110,” Hirofumi Suzuki, a Singapore-based economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, told Bloomberg News.
“Today’s move is just a slight correction. The trend to depreciate is still there.”
Nissan surged 2.26 percent to 1,039 yen and Toyota jumped 2.58 percent to 5,789 yen. Honda added 2.09 percent.
Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing, a market heavyweight, soared 4.09 percent to 30,630 yen.
Petroleum-linked firms advanced in line with another jump in crude prices, which was fuelled by a fall in US oil production and calls by Iraq for another meeting to limit global output.
Energy explorer Inpex rose 3.85 percent to 902.5 yen and JX Holdings added 1.10 percent to 477.3 yen.
dhl/pb/dan
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