Japan’s Nikkei is higher because of U.S. futures gains. Weak yen

TOKYO (Reuters), Jan 20 (Reuters – Japan’s Nikkei shares average reversed early losses to finish higher on Friday as sentiment was boosted after Wall Street losses overnight.

The Nikkei closed the day at 26,553.53, up 0.56% after falling as much as 0.3% earlier in Wall Street losses tracking. The weekly gain for the index was 1.66%.

The wider Topix index rose 0.59%, to 1,926.87, and gained 1.25% for week.

After data suggesting a tight labor market raised concerns that the Federal Reserve would continue to hike rates aggressively, which could cause the economy into recession, U.S. stockindices closed lower overnight

Seiichi Suzuki, chief equity market analyst for Tokai Tokyo Research Institute said that Japanese shares are more stable than Wall Street’s overnight performance.

“Investors were betting that Wall Street would gain during the next session,” which has helped the Nikkei. Sentiment also improved with the weakening yen.”

Fast Retailing, which owns Uniqlo, saw a 0.94% increase, which boosted the Nikkei most. Daikin Industries, a manufacturer of air conditioning, rose 2.09% while KDDI, a phone company rose 1.27%.

After Prime Minister Fumio Kishhida stated that the country will reconsider COVID-19 measures by this spring, lowering the severity of the disease to a lower category, airlines jumped 3.18%.

Fujitsu General closed up 0.84% after a jump of more than 5% following Reuters’ report that Fujitsu launched an auction for its air conditioning manufacturing business. Fujitsu lost 0.87%.

Tokyo Electron, the chip-equipment company Tokyo Electron, dropped 0.18% to the Nikkei’s most severe weight loss. Online medical service platform M3 lost 1.44%. (Reporting by Junko Fujita; Editing done by Rashmi Ahich and Eileen Soreng).