Tokyo stocks rose Friday morning as technology and precision instrument shares tracked gains by U.S. peers overnight.
The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average rose 561.24 points, or 1.58 percent, from Thursday to 36,027.41. The broader Topix index was up 21.86 points, or 0.88 percent, at 2,513.95.
The U.S. dollar was firmer, briefly rising to the mid-148 yen range in Tokyo trading, as bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates as soon as March receded on lower-than-expected U.S. initial jobless claims data overnight.
At noon, the U.S. dollar fetched 148.24-27 yen compared with 148.10-20 yen in New York and 147.76-78 yen in Tokyo at 5 p.m. Thursday.
The euro was quoted at $1.0888-0889 and 161.40-45 yen against $1.0871-0881 and 161.00-10 yen in New York and $1.0887-0888 and 160.87-91 yen in Tokyo late Thursday afternoon.
An upbeat outlook from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest contract chipmaker, and the rise of the tech-heavy Nasdaq index lifted high-tech stocks. TSMC said Thursday it expects revenue to increase around 20 percent in 2024 amid demand for artificial intelligence products.
Kazuo Kamitani, a strategist in the Investment Content Department of Nomura Securities Co., said that "participants took the results from TSMC as a prompt to buy parts of the market."
