Nikkei ticks up by break after breaching 20,000 level

TOKYO: Japan's benchmark index ticked up Monday morning, extending gains after it closed at its highest level in nearly two years on Friday.

Tokyo shares opened slightly down but "the buy-on-dip transactions are pushing back" some of losses in early trade, said Yoshihiro Ito, chief strategist at Okasan Online Securities said in a commentary.

The Nikkei 225, which opened the session in negative territory, edged 0.14 percent, or 28.37 points, higher to sit at 20,205.65 by the lunch break, while the Topix index of all first-section shares slipped 0.12 percent, or 1.95 points, to 1,610.25.

The dollar rebounded to 110.56 yen in midday Tokyo trade, from 110.44 yen late Friday in New York, also lifting some of weight on the Japanese stocks after its close above 20,000 Friday, analysts said.

A weaker yen boosts the profitability of Japanese firms doing business abroad.

However, the dollar-yen rebound is weighed by various factors that have risk-off sentiments such as the London terror attacks and North Korean situations, Koichi Takamatsu, head of G-10 FX trading for Japan at Nomura Securities, told Bloomberg News.

"Markets right now have stronger sensitivity to (US) yields, which put downside pressures on the dollar-yen,"  he also said.

"It would feel strange to see yen gaining when Nikkei stock average is moving above 20,000," he said.

Softbank was up 2.73 percent at 9,241 yen while Nintendo was up 2.18 percent at 34,270.

Automakers were among losers in the market. Toyota fell 1.81 percent to 5,982 yen, Nissan was down 1.45 percent at 1,082 yen and Honda was down 2.16 percent at 3,125 yen.

Toshiba was down 0.81 percent at 255.6 yen at the break, after a report by the leading business daily Nikkei said Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision, better known as Foxconn, is planning to tie up with US tech giants Apple and Amazon in its bid to buy the struggling Japanese firm's prized memory chip business.