On the corporate front, shares in Nintendo Co surged in Tokyo as it continued to benefit from the success of its new Pokemon Go smartphone game, which debuted at the top of the USA gaming charts last week. The firm is up almost 60% since Thursday with billions added to its market value.
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Halting a four-day rally, the yen weakened against most of its 10 major peers, with the dollar jumping to 101.70 yen from 100.47 yen in the U.S. on Friday.
The yen slumped Tuesday on expectations that Tokyo is drawing up a fresh round of huge stimulus to kickstart the torpid Japanese economy.
Asian stocks rose on Monday, boosted by Friday’s strong jobs numbers in the US and a victory for the coalition led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Sunday elections for the upper house of the Japanese parliament.
Tetsuro Kato, professor of politics at Waseda University, said Abe won’t rush to change the constitution, saying he needs better timing because the recent strengthening of the yen – a minus for exports – and concerns about global economic growth.
The U.S. dollar gained traction after news of the Abe-Bernanke meeting emerged, said Takuya Kanda, a senior researcher at Gaitame.Com Research Institute.
“It s leading to higher share prices”.
The Japanese yen fell 0.8% to 101.40 per dollar recently. The fall in the yen provided much-needed support for Japan’s exporters after the currency surged in response to the Brexit vote as traders sought out low-risk investments.
Once again Nintendo soared, adding 12.73% as its new smartphone game Pokemon Go tops gaming charts and racks up millions of buyers. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.5 percent.
Sydney put on 0.3%, while Seoul, Singapore, Jakarta and Manila all posted healthy gains.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year bonds, which moves inversely to its price rose 1/2 basis points to -0.273, short-term 2-year JGB yield rose almost 1 basis point to -0.345 percent, super-long 40-year bonds rose ½ basis points to 0.121 percent and the yield on 20-year JGB also bounced almost 1 basis point to 0.056 percent by 07:00 GMT.
The euro edged down on to $1.1026, staying within the $1.10-$1.12 range in which it has mainly traded since the day after the news broke that Britain had voted to leave the European Union.
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With interior minister Theresa May set to become Britain’s prime minister on Wednesday, ending weeks of political uncertainty, sterling rose 1.1 percent to $1.3145, pulling away from a 31-year low of $1.2798 struck last week.
