Tokyo stocks close higher with earnings in focus

Tokyo stocks ended higher Tuesday as investors look ahead to the start of the corporate earnings season as well as growth data out of China, a meeting of the European Central Bank and the final US presidential debate.

“With overnight strength in the yen, coupled with declines in US and European shares, the Japanese stock market started on a weak note,” Naoki Fujiwara, chief fund manager with Shinkin Asset Management told Bloomberg News.

“But with China GDP coming up, the ECB meeting, and US presidential debate as well as a slew of local corporate earnings reports due next week, investors will find it difficult to make aggressive moves.”

Among the firms reporting next week are videogame giant Nintendo and camera and copier maker Canon.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.38 percent, or 63.49 points, at 16,963.61 while the Topix index of all first-section issues rose 0.30 percent, or 4.01 points, to 1,356.57.

The dollar sank Monday after a mixed bag of US economic data and comments from Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer that interest rates could be suppressed in the long term by weak growth at home and abroad and low corporate investment.

But it recovered late Tuesday, buying 104.02 yen after Japan’s equity markets had closed, up from 103.88 yen in New York.

In share trading Honda, rose 0.71 percent to 3,089 yen after the automaker said it would build a new factory in China. Sony rose 1.34 percent to 3,472 yen but Toyota slipped 0.66 percent to 5,990 yen.