Tokyo stocks up on cheap yen

Tokyo - Tokyo stocks rallied on Wednesday morning, as a cheaper yen boosted hopes for Japan profits with investors looking to minutes from the US central bank's latest meeting due later on Wednesday.

Toshiba's volatile shares soared nearly 12% before ending the morning 6.5% higher at ¥247.3.

The stock jumped on a Nikkei business daily report that the troubled conglomerate - mired in losses at its US nuclear unit - was holding a meeting with US partner Western Digital over the sale of its prized memory chip business.

The two firms, which jointly operate a chip plant in Japan, have clashed over cash-strapped Toshiba's plans to sell the division, seen as key to its survival.

The dollar was changing hands at ¥111.84, up from ¥111.82 in New York and well up from the levels below ¥ 111 in Asia earlier on Tuesday.

A cheaper yen is positive for shares of Japanese exporters as it inflates the value of their repatriated profits.

"The yen is trading at levels that make people feel comfortable, a plus for local corporate earnings," Mitsushige Akino, an executive officer at Ichiyoshi Investment Management, told Bloomberg News.

Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 index added 94.59 points to 19 707.87 by the break, while the Topix index of all first-section issues advanced 7.63 points to 1572.85.

Investors appeared to shrug off news that Moody's cut its credit rating on China - a major trading partner with Japan - over concerns about its growing debt mountain.

Tokyo's rise followed a fourth straight winning session for Wall Street, as US President Donald Trump's administration released a 2018 budget that seeks huge cuts over 10 years to a category of spending that includes key social and "mandatory" programmes for lower-income Americans.

Investors will be keeping an eye on the release of minutes from the US central bank's May meeting hoping for clues about future interest rate hikes.

"Investors may want to refrain from going after fresh highs before seeing the minutes," said Toshiyuki Kanayama, a senior market analyst at Monex.

Some major exporter shares rose with Sony up 1.64% at ¥4 022 and Toyota tacking on 0.13% to ¥6 008.