Japanese stocks gained for a sixth- straight day, after an unexpected fall in U.S. unemployment boosted the dollar against the yen, enhancing the earnings outlook for Japanese exporters.

In Japan it is a rite of spring as familiar as the flowering of the cherry blossoms and the melting of the snow on Mount Fuji – every year in March millions of Japanese are reduced to sneezing, weeping helplessness by powerful hay fever that sweeps across the country in an invisible cloud.