A weaker yen helped Japanese stocks push past 11,000 for the first time since April 2010 early today, while the South Korean market was weighed by a decline in Samsung Electronics.
The US dollar strengthened against the yen early today, recently at Y91.03 compared with 90.93 late Friday in New York. A weakening yen has been a key contributor to the recent rally in Japanese stocks, and despite some renewed strength in the currency early last week - brought about by dollar selling after the Bank of Japan concluded its policy meeting - the greenback still managed to post a 0.9 per cent gain last week.