Nikkei up 0.8 pct, Chugai Pharm jumps on earnings
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TOKYO, Oct 24 (Reuters) - The Nikkei average rose 0.8 percent on Wednesday following gains on Wall Street, but the market looked likely to settle down as investors await earnings reports from big companies in Japan and the United States.
Among the morning session's big gainers, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co Ltd (4519.T) posted its biggest one-day percentage jump in almost two years on strong earnings results.
"The market is likely to continue to be solid in the afternoon session, but there are few factors to push the Nikkei above 16,600," said Madoka Takahashi at Monex Inc's investment information centre.
"Also the yen's started firming against the dollar. Although the gain is not so sharp, it makes investors hesitant to keep buying stocks."
Japanese earnings season is getting into high gear this week, with Shin-Etsu Chemical Co Ltd (4063.T), Yahoo Japan Corp (4689.T) and Elpida Memory Inc (6665.T) are scheduled to announce results later in the day.
The benchmark Nikkei .N225 ended the morning session up 128.01 points at 16,578.59. The broader TOPIX index was up 1 percent at 1,586.47.
Trade was moderate, with 793 million shares changing hands, compared with the last week's daily morning average of 844 million shares.
Advancing shares outnumbered declining ones by 1,128 to 453.
Chugai Pharmaceutical jumped 7.6 percent to 1,939 yen after the firm reported a 24 percent increase in its operating profit for the nine months ended in September, helped by government stockpiling of Tamiflu and a bottoming-out in price falls in its anaemia drug Epogin.
TAKEDA UP
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd (4502.T) gained 1.5 percent to 8,090 yen after the Nikkei business daily reported that the drugmaker was likely to post an operating profit of about 530 billion yen ($4.6 billion) for the year to March, up 16 percent thanks to brisk sales of its diabetes drug in the United States.
Honda Motor Co Ltd (7267.T), Japan's second-biggest automaker, gained 2.1 percent to 3,860 yen after it said it would start churning out gasoline-electric hybrid cars in large volumes with a hybrid-only family car planned for a 2009 launch. [ID:nT51914]
Banks extended gains. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (8306.T) rose 2.6 percent to 1,073 yen and Mizuho Financial Group Inc (8411.T) climbed 2.6 percent to 637,000 yen. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc (8316.T) gained 2.4 percent to 871,000 yen.
Seiyu Ltd 8268.T jumped 18 percent to 138 yen, just 2 yen shy of the 140 yen per-share offer from Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), which had said it would spend up to 100 billion yen to buy out minority shareholders in the struggling supermarket operator.
In Osaka, Nintendo Co Ltd (7974.OS) rose for the first time in seven days, jumping 7.2 percent to 68,400 yen after Goldman Sachs reiterated its "buy" rating and target price of 71,000 yen.
Goldman said the video game maker would likely beat its first-half operating profit and continue to post earnings growth.
