* Nikkei up 0.3% by late morning after hitting 9 ½ mth high
* Foreigners buy Japan stocks for 15th straight week
* Shift into developed economies from EM boosting Nikkei
By Antoni Slodkowski
TOKYO, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei stock average rose for a fourth session on Thursday to a 9-1/2-month high as solid earnings and global merger activity encouraged foreign investors to keep snapping up outperforming Japanese shares.
Inpex Corp and other oil-related stocks gained on rise in the oil price, while Honda Motor Co rose on a newspaper report the automaker was likely to buyback its own shares.
By late morning trade the Nikkei average was up 0.3 percent, or 30.98 points to 10,839.27. It rose as high as 10,891.6, its highest intraday level since an April 30 peak of 11,092.52. The broader TOPIX index gained 0.5 percent.
"Both foreign pension funds, seeking to increase their exposure to Japanese shares amid signs of the global economy picking up steam, as well as individual investors are buying Tokyo shares today," said Tsuyoshi Kawata, senior strategist at Nikko Cordial Securities.
Gains on Wall Street after Dell Inc beat expectations with its earnings and on deal announcements -- including activist investor Nelson Peltz's Trian Group offering to acquire Family Dollar Stores Inc -- helped trigger buying of Japanese shares.
The Nikkei has gained some 6 percent this year, making it the best-performing Asian market so far in 2011, while Asian stocks outside Japan are down around 2 percent on the year to date, largely due to inflation worries and anticipated further interest rate hikes in countries including China.
Foreign investors began buying lagging Japan stocks late last year, and a recent shift in focus to developed economies from emerging ones has given an extra lift to the purchases, market players said.
Overseas investors were net buyers of Japan stocks last week for the 15th straight week, the longest buying streak since late 2005/early 2006, data showed. They bought a net 192.2 billion yen ($2.30 billion) of Tokyo shares last week.
Nikko Cordial's Kawata said the Nikkei may struggle to climb much further on Thursday.
"Nikkei futures are now at around 10,900 and that's the market's target today," Kawata said.
Inpex gained 2.1 percent to 574,000 yen after the news that Iranian warships were headed to Syria sent oil higher.
Honda rose 2.1 percent to 3,730 yen after the Nikkei newspaper said that the carmaker is likely to repurchase shares worth up to 40 billion yen as part of its plan to return 30 percent of its net profit to shareholders. (additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa and Tokyo newsroom; Editing by Nathan Layne)