Japan Stocks continued to increase for a third-straight-day Thursday due to rising material prices and strong U.S. dollars.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average increased 200.54 points, or 1.5%, to 13389.90. The Topix index of all the Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section issues rose 17.57 points, or 1.4%, to 1299.64.

Among all the TSE first section issues, 952 increased and 627 declined. The trading volume reached 2,072.90 million stocks or 2,378.5 billion yen. The Japanese currency is being traded in the level of later half of 102 yen per a U.S. dollar.

In the morning, there was uncertainty of the direction of trading because U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's comments on fears of a U.S. recession.

Then investors relieved by weakening yen and strong U.S. dollars and began to buy

Japanese issues.

Toshiba especially gained because the its subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co., which is now under the Japanese firm, will begin to take orders from two U.S. power companies for next-generation nuclear power reactors. The orders are expected to reach as much as 1,400 trillion yen, according to Nikkei.

Toshiba issue gained 5.9 percent to 778 yen. Also financial issues like Mitsubishi UFJ financial group and Mizuho financial group and commodity-related issues like Inpex Holdings were gained strongly.

Ben Bernanke Tokyo Stock Exchange Nikkei 225