Tokyo stocks up at break, Toshiba dives on loss report

Tokyo stocks rose Thursday morning as exporters were boosted by a weaker yen, but Toshiba plunged on reports of huge losses in its US nuclear power business.

The dollar rose to 114.66 yen Thursday from the 113-yen range early Wednesday after investors took remarks by Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen as signalling more interest rate hikes this year.

Yellen said on Wednesday that the US central bank is close to achieving its inflation and employment goals although any policy moves depend on the state of the world's top economy.

"The tone of Yellen's remarks appears to have gotten stronger, spurring expectations for a March rate hike," said Mitsushige Akino, an executive officer at Ichiyoshi Investment Management.

"The yen is back on its weakening trend and investors are likely to restore their interest in exporters," he told Bloomberg News.

A weaker yen is positive for exporters, and stirs demand for their shares, as it makes their products more competitive abroad and inflates the value of their repatriated profits.

The Nikkei 225 index rose 0.94 percent, or 176.93 points, to 19,071.30 by the break while the Topix index of all first-section issues was up 0.87 percent, or 13.13 points, at 1,526.99.

Toshiba dived 17.47 percent to 238 yen after Japan's leading Nikkei business daily reported the troubled conglomerate could book losses of more than 500 billion yen in its nuclear reactor business.

Toyota rose 1.72 percent to 6,852 yen and Canon climbed 1.09 percent to 3,315 yen.

Trading in Takata was suspended at the open following a report that two bidders are set to propose court-mediated rescue plans for the airbag maker at the centre of the auto industry's biggest safety recall.

Nintendo slipped 1.15 percent to 23,195 yen with investors shrugging off an announcement that it plans to launch its Super Mario Run smartphone game for Android OS in March.

The app has been available on Apple's iPhones since December.

The firm also announced a new smartphone game called Fire Emblem Heroes.

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