Japanese stocks rose, led by brokerages, on optimism government measures will ease global financial turmoil, overshadowing drops by automakers as the yen strengthened and the nation’s exports dropped by a record. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. surged 6.4 percent on speculation U.S. President Barack Obama will soon announce plans to spur lending and as Credit Suisse Group raised Japan’s securities industry to “overweight.” Astellas Pharma Inc. jumped 5.6 percent after winning approval to sell an osteoporosis drug. Honda Motor Co., which gets more than half its earnings from North America, lost 3.8 percent, after the yen appreciated to the strongest level in almost 14 years yesterday. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 73.79, or 0.9 percent, to 7,975.43 as of 1:50 p.m. in Tokyo, erasing an early 1.2 percent decline. The broader Topix index added 4.55, or 0.6 percent, to 791.70, with 26 of its 33 industry groups gaining. “There’s a tug-of-war between expectations for Obama’s stimulus measures and pessimism about the worsening global economy,” Mitsushige Akino, who oversees the equivalent of $615 million at Tokyo-based Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co., said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “The market is held in this very tenuous balance.” The Nikkei plunged by a record 42 percent last year and has lost 11 percent in 2009 as credit losses and asset writedowns at global financial companies surpassed $1 trillion and the worldwide recession deepened. Japan’s exports tumbled 35 percent in December from a year earlier, the most on record, the Finance Ministry said today, pointing to wider losses and more job cuts among domestic manufacturers. Obama’s economic package is likely to include fresh injections of capital into banks and will deal with toxic assets clogging lenders’ balance sheets, people familiar with the deliberations said. Treasury Secretary-nominee Timothy Geithner yesterday told Congress that Obama will propose a “comprehensive plan” within the next few weeks for responding to the economic and financial crises. The Bank of Japan said today it will consider buying corporate bonds to prevent a credit shortage from deepening the recession.

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