OREANDA-NEWS. March 11, 2015. Tokyo stocks rose 0.22 percent Tuesday morning after solid gains on Wall Street and as the yen tumbled towards its lowest level in almost eight years against the dollar, boosting exporters.

The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange climbed 41.09 points to 18,831.64 by the break, while the Topix index of all first-section shares added 0.10 percent, or 1.46 points, to 1,533.22.

Tokyo picked up a strong lead from Wall Street, which rose following the launch of Apple's smartwatch and a General Motors announcement of \\$5.0 billion in share buybacks.

The Dow rose 0.78 percent, the S&P 500 gained 0.39 percent and the Nasdaq advanced 0.31 percent.

Upbeat US jobs data last week is fuelling speculation that the Fed will hike interest rates as soon as June, pushing the dollar higher.

In Asian trade the greenback fetched 121.76 yen, up from 121.15 yen in New York and heading to its highest since July 2007.

"The US economy is moving in the right direction, and expectations of a rate hike should continue until the Fed's meeting next week, which means the yen could continue to weaken against the dollar," Toshihiko Matsuno, chief strategist at SMBC Friend Securities, told Bloomberg News.

A weak yen is generally positive for Japanese exporters as it makes them more competitive abroad and inflates the value of repatriated profits.

Toyota rose 0.21 percent to 8,210.0 yen by the break, Honda added 1.06 percent to 4,083.5 yen and Panasonic gained 0.23 percent to 1,519.0 yen. Camera maker Nikon jumped 4.17 percent to 1,725.0 yen as Nomura raised its outlook on the stock.