Tokyo shares close higher

TOKYO (AFP/APP): Tokyo stocks ended the first session of 2022 on an upbeat note Tuesday after US shares also advanced on their first trading day of the year.
The Nikkei 225 rose 1.77 percent, or 510.08 points, to end at 29,301.79, while the broader Topix index added 1.90 percent, or 37.89 points, to 2,030.22.
Tokyo trading resumed after Wall Street’s Dow and S&P 500 indexes ended at fresh records on Monday as investors cheered Apple’s valuation briefly climbing to $3 trillion.
“The Nikkei rebounded to 29,000 at the open after the Dow and S&P 500 ended at record high,” Okasan Online Securities said.
The Nikkei gained as “a wide variety of shares, mainly chip-related stocks, were bought”, it said.
The dollar rose to 115.81 yen in Asian trade against 115.47 yen in New York overnight. The yen is now at its lowest level in five years against the dollar as US treasury yields spike.
“The transition to a more normal global economy in 2022 will lead to a normalisation of monetary policy by several central banks, including the Fed” and that will weigh on the yen, David Forrester, senior FX strategist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg News.
In Tokyo, chipmaker Murata Manufacturing rose 2.47 percent to 9,384 yen while Advantest, a major producer of testing kits for semiconductors, gained 3.57 percent to 11,290 yen.
Automakers were higher with Toyota soaring 6.12 percent to 2,234 yen, Honda climbing 3.06 percent to 3,329 yen and Nissan jumping 6.17 percent to 590 yen.
SoftBank Group firmed 0.88 percent to 5,482 yen while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing dipped 0.71 percent to 64,840 yen.