Japan Stocks Push Higher As Market Awaits Greek Meeting Outcome | Fox Business

Japanese stocks shook higher Monday morning, as investors awaited the outcome of the European Union's emergency meeting on the Greek crisis. With reports saying Athens had submitted a raft of planned reforms in exchange for fiscal aid, Japan's Nikkei Average moved from a flat open to sit 0.7% higher after about half an hour of trade, with the Topix up 0.6%. While the dollar had fallen to �122.81 after spending most of the previous week above �123, apparent optimism over a solution to the Greek situation helped many of the globally exposed blue chips move solidly higher. Shares of Sony Corp. rallied 2.9%, Komatsu Ltd. and Sharp Corp. rose 1.8% each, and Konica Minolta Inc. jumped 4.4%, coinciding with the company's purchase of unlisted SymQuest Group. Stock in Gungho Online Entertainment Inc. traded 2.6% higher as the Nikkei reported the company planned to retire 8% of its stock float, while Tokyo Electron Ltd. went the other way, losing 0.4% after news its planned merger with Applied Materials Inc. of the U.S. had failed to win regulatory approval. Banks were also broadly higher (Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. up 2.5%, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. up 1.7%, Mizuho Financial Group Inc. up 0.9%), also likely bolstered by hope for a Greek deal. Over in the auto-maker space, Toyota Motor Corp. sat fractionally lower, while Honda Motor Co. added 0.9%, even after confirming that the death of a California motorist was due to the rupture of a faulty Takata Corp. airbag. Takata stock lost 0.4%. Among other movers, Asahi Kasei Corp. added 1.9% after a Nikkei news report said the electronics-and-chemical company would report "a roughly 20% rise" for its April-June operating profit, compared to a year earlier. Stock in ANA Holdings Inc. improved by 1.6%, with a separate Nikkei report quoting an executive at the airline as saying there would be no stock offerings to raise capital in the next year or two.