TOKYO, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei rose 0.2 percent on Thursday, bouncing back from an early loss after the dollar jumped against the yen on comments by U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
In an interview published by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Geithner suggested that he saw no need for the dollar to sink further against the euro and the yen, saying major currencies were roughly in alignment now.
The interview boosted the dollar and pulled the benchmark Nikkei stock average out of negative territory, where it had been weighed down as the yen held near a 15-year high against the U.S. currency.
"The Nikkei rebounded strongly after the dollar jumped against the yen on Geithner's comments," said Takashi Ohba, senior strategist at Okasan Securities.
"This could have prompted active short-covering by foreign players who were detected selling Nikkei futures heavily the previous day."
By the midday break, the Nikkei was up 18.91 points at 9,400.51, after falling as low as 9,326.78, while the broader Topix was down 0.4 percent at 820.64.
Market players were awaiting Chinese economic data releases and the reaction of Chinese stock and commodity prices for further cues on the direction of trade.
After the morning close in Tokyo, China said its annual gross domestic product growth slowed to 9.6 percent in the third quarter from 10.3 percent in the second quarter. Economists had forcast third-quarter growth of 9.5 percent. (Reporting by Chikafumi Hodo and Aiko Hayashi; Editing by Edmund Klamann)