Nikkei rises 0.7 pct on blue chips, Nintendo jumps

TOKYO, Oct 4: The Nikkei average rose 0.71 percent by midmorning on Wednesday, led by shares of blue-chip stocks such as Canon Inc. after the Dow hit an all-time high, while Nintendo Co. Ltd. jumped over 4 percent after raising its income forecast.

There was little immediate impact on the Tokyo market from Tuesday's announcement by North Korea that it would conduct its first nuclear test, market analysts said.

''A record Dow doesn't mean everything, but means something to investors,'' said Masatoshi Sato, a senior strategist at Mizuho Investors Securities.

''They seem to feel more comfortable to buy blue chip stocks here than before,'' he said. ''The North Korea issue is not easy to digest at this moment,'' he added.

The Nikkei was up 115.34 points at 16,357.43 as of 0111 GMT, nearing a September intraday high of 16,414.

The broader TOPIX index was up 0.62 percent at 1,627.93.

On Tuesday the U.S. blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average average climbed to 11,758.95, topping its previous intraday record of 11,750.28 reached on Jan. 14, 2000, when Internet stock mania gripped investors.

Mizuho Investors' Sato said the Dow does not have the same stocks that it did when it last reached a record, and when compared with the Standard&Poor's 500 Index, which is still several hundred points short of renewing a record, lower weightings for energy stocks have helped the Dow.

In Tokyo, Toyota Motor Corp., the world's second-biggest auto maker, gained 1.9 percent to 6,600 yen, helped by a 20 percent jump in its U.S. vehicle sales in September from a year earlier.

Office equipment maker Canon, which is set to post another year of record profits, rose 1.9 percent to 6,400 yen.

Nintendo jumped 4.5 percent to 24,880 yen.

The world's No.3 game console maker raised its consolidated net income forecast on Tuesday for this business year by 20.5 percent to 100 billion yen (0.1 million) on strong sales of its DS handheld game console and a weaker-than-expected yen.

But declines in resource-related stocks capped gains in the overall market.

Nippon Mining Holdings Inc., an oil refiner and copper smelter, sank 5.5 percent to 779 yen, falling together with other resource-related stocks after U.S. crude oil futures prices fell sharply, dragged down by a U.S. oil inventory glut and a fading hurricane threat.

Mitsubishi Corp. lost 3.7 percent to 2,080 yen and Mitsui&Co. slid 4 percent to 1,459 yen, having been under pressure since Russia last month ordered a halt to the billion Sakhalin-2 oil project in which Japan's No.1 and No.2 general trading firms have stakes.

Reuters