Asian shares gain with focus on Scotland vote result ahead

Investing.com - Tokyo led Asian stocks higher Friday with the yen hitting a more than six-year low against the dollar, as investors' focus shifted to a referendum on Scottish independence and the debut of China's Alibaba Group Holding in New York.

The Nikkei 225 rose 0.9% at 16210.68, after the greenback touched a high of Yen109.46 in morning trade -- its highest since August 2008.

GBP/USD was slightly higher by 0.2% at $1.64, suggesting investors expect the vote to lean in favor of staying in the U.K. Voters in four of the 32 districts in Scotland have voted to stay in the U.K.Investors are also looking ahead to Alibaba's initial public offering Friday morning in New York. Shares of the Chinese e-commerce firm priced at $68 apiece, at the top of the company's expected range. That puts Alibaba on track for an offering that will raise at least $21.8 billion and gives the firm an initial market value of $168 billion. Early investors are being allowed to sell more than $8 billion worth of shares.

The Hang Seng was up 0.4% and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.2%.

National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX:NAB), which owns Glasgow-based Clydesdale Bank, gained 1.1%. The stock has fallen roughly 6% since early August as polls suggested the outcome of the independence referendum would be a close call.

Overnight, U.S. stocks rose as investors applauded a Federal Reserve decision to keep benchmark interest rates low for some time to ensure the economy continues to strengthen.

The Dow 30 rose 0.64%, the S&P 500 index rose 0.49%, while the NASDAQ Composite index rose 0.68%.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said that it will likely close its monthly bond-buying program in October and suggested it will raise interest rates in 2015.

A mixed bag of data failed to seriously dampen Thursday's gains, as investors shrugged off soft housing data and focused on upbeat numbers out of the labor market.

In a report, the U.S. Department of Labor said the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending Sept. 13 fell by 36,000 to 280,000, the lowest level since mid-July, from the previous week’s revised total of 316,000.

Analysts had expected jobless claims to fall by 11,000 to 305,000 last week.

Separately, the U.S. Commerce Department said that the number of building permits issued last month dropped by 5.6% to 998,000 units from July’s total of 1.057 million.

Analysts expected building permits to fall by 0.4% to 1.045 million units in August.