* Solid resistance expected around 200-day moving average
* Year-end buying by European funds help Japan stocks-analyst
* Soft yen on unwinding of dlr carry trades helps -analyst
By Aiko Hayashi and Chikafumi Hodo
TOKYO, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei average rose 0.6 percent on Thursday, hitting a fresh five-month high at one stage, with shares of exporters helped by a weaker yen against the dollar and financial stocks gaining on short-covering.
The benchmark broke above its five-month intraday high of 9,908.30 hit on Tuesday and solid resistance likely waits at its 200-day moving average, now around 9,920, which has been in place since May.
"Foreign funds are slowly buying back Japanese stocks as they've been selling them consistently since the start of the year," said Kenichi Hirano, analyst at Tachibana Securities.
"This week investors were looking at the currency and buying exporters' shares, but now they're also concentrating on buying back domestic demand-related shares."
Data from Japan's Ministry of Finance showed foreign investors were a net buyer of Japanese stocks over the past two weeks.
At the midday break, the benchmark Nikkei was up 0.6 percent at 9,871.51, after rising as much as 1.1 percent to 9,918.53, its highest since June 24.
The broader Topix added 0.8 percent to 856.87.
Market players said short-covering of financial shares by overseas funds helped spur similar moves in other sectors, with some saying buying was led by European funds to balance their positions ahead of the year-end book closings.
In early Asia trade the dollar fetched 83.32 yen, not far off a six-week high of 83.60 yen struck on Tuesday.
"The unwinding of dollar-carry trades has prompted the dollar to rebound and that's become an element to support Japanese stocks, keeping active selling in check and leaving the market stuck in a range," said Tsuyoshi Segawa, an equity strategist at Mizuho Securities.
If the Nikkei breaks decisively above its 200-day moving average, that could pave the way for it to rise to the closely watched 10,000 mark, traders said, and the next target is then expected to be around its June high of 10,251.90.
Banking shares gained, with Japan's top lender Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group climbing 2.8 percent to 406 yen. Exporter shares also rose as TDK rose 1.3 percent to 5,330 yen.
Defensive shares also found favour with drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co rising 1.4 percent to 3,925 yen, while household goods maker Kao climbed 0.8 percent to 2,131 yen.
Mitsubishi Electric Corp rose 2.3 percent to 816 yen after Chief Executive Kenichiro Yamanishi told the Nikkei business daily the firm wants sales to recover to 4 trillion yen by the financial year to March 2014.
The diversified electronics maker expects sales in the current business year to March 2011 to reach 3.56 trillion yen. (Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)