TOKYO: Japanese stocks gurggled just a little higher in opening Friday trade, with the Tokyo market looking to complete a perfect 5-for-5 week of winning sessions. About 10 minutes into the session, the Nikkei Average NIK, +0.12% was up 0.1%, with the Topix I0000, -0.06% flat, even after the dollar USDJPY, -0.11% rose above the ¥124 mark overnight. Still, with some reports citing caution ahead of a three-day weekend for Japan, the gains for the big exporters were mixed and modest, with Panasonic Corp. 6752, -0.19% PCRFF, -2.95% up 0.2%, Canon Inc. 7751, +1.17% CAJ, -0.25% and Nissan Motor Co. 7201, -0.08% NSANY, -0.76% up 0.6% each, and Hitachi Ltd. 6501, -0.09% HTHIF, -0.56% up 0.1%. Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp. 4188, +0.35% MTLHY, +6.68% rose 0.7% as a Nikkei news report quoted the company as saying it may combine its chemical, plastics and rayon units to save money. Among the outperformers, Nintendo Co. 7974, +0.88% NTDOF, +3.43% rallied 2.2%, and shares of Alps Electric Co. 6770, +1.15% APELF, +133.83% traded 2.4% higher, continuing to make hay over a target-price hike by UBS. On the downside, Toyota Motor Corp. 7203, -1.25% TM, +1.33% lost 1.2% on the back of recent gains, and Sharp Corp. 6753, -2.91% SHCAF, -14.07% fell 2.9% after a Nikkei earnings preview tipped the company to swing to a quarterly operating loss for the April-June period. But stock in Unicharm Corp. 8113, +1.59% rose 1.5% on a separate Nikkei item predicting the diaper-maker to post a 3% rise in six-month net profit, even as operating profit would decline.
