Tokyo stocks up by break

TOKYO: Tokyo stocks rose Wednesday morning, tracking gains in New York but investors moved cautiously ahead of a summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump this week.

Wall Street ticked higher after data from the US Commerce Department showed the country's trade deficit narrowed in February.

That helped boost sentiment clouded ahead of the two-day meeting between Trump and Xi beginning Thursday.

Trump has vowed to take a hard line on countries such as China that have large trade surpluses with the United States.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 0.27 percent, or 51.43 points, to 18,861.68 by the lunch break, while the Topix index of all first-section issues edged up 0.06 percent, or 0.90 points, to 1,505.44.

Trump will host Xi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and the encounter is expected to address disputes over trade policy between the world's two leading economies as well as North Korea's nuclear and missile development.

"Trading is top heavy ahead of the US-China summit," Yoshihiro Ito, chief strategist at Okasan Online Securities, wrote in a commentary.

Analysts also said that a slowdown in the pace of yen appreciation helped support Japanese stocks.

The dollar was trading at 110.74 yen, little changed from 110.73 yen in New York on Tuesday.

The Japanese currency had risen on safe-haven buying after the subway bombing in Saint Petersburg on Monday that killed 14 people.

"Recent uncertain factors, including terrorism in Russia, tend to support a strong yen," Masakazu Satou, senior analyst at Gaitame Online, told AFP.

"But yen-buying has been stalled as investors are on the sidelines of major events later this week, including the US-China summit."

Toshiba rose 0.77 percent to 208.4 yen after local media reported that Taiwan's Hon Hai has offered more than two trillion yen ($18 billion) for Toshiba Memory, the cash-stripped company's crown jewel that was spun off for sale.

Exporters were mixed. FANUC gained 3.15 percent to 23,240 yen, with Fujitsu 0.77 percent higher at 680 yen.

But Toyota fell 1.16 percent to 5,914 yen and Sony lost 0.70 percent to 3,648 yen.