TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average was flat at the morning session’s close on Monday as a modest rise in Wall Street’s three main indexes last week marginally boosted market sentiment, but a looming deadline for implementing additional US tariffs kept investors cautious.
The Nikkei was unchanged from Friday’s close of 37,676.97 by the midday break, while the broader Topix fell 0.3% to 2,794.67 after logging an eight-month peak at the end of last week.
The Nikkei received some support as a portion of heavyweight shares saw some buying.
Uniqlo parent firm Fast Retailing rose 0.4% and AI-focused startup investor SoftBank Group climbed 2.9%.
However, the benchmark index struggled to advance, seesawing between gains and losses as market participants eyed the April 2 deadline that US President Donald Trump has set for reciprocal and sector-specific tariffs to go into effect.
Trump hinted that he would be flexible regarding the new round of levies, helping lift the S&P and Dow at the end of the week, but Japanese equity investors on Monday took a wary approach to the impending threat.
Many important details regarding the latest tariffs are still unknown, keeping investors on edge, said Kazuo Kamitani, a strategist at Nomura Securities.
“There’s no way to predict it, so we have no choice but to wait for the announcement,” he said.
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Many major semiconductor-related shares dragged on Monday to follow their US peers after the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index ended nearly 1% down on Friday.
Tokyo Electron slid 0.3%, while Screen Holdings stumbled 3.3% to become the biggest percentage loser on the Nikkei. Among other big-name shares, Seven & i Holdings rose 2% and Chugai Pharmaceutical climbed 1.6%.
Robot maker Fanuc gave up 1.7%.
Of the Nikkei’s 225 constituents, 66 advanced while157declined.
Two shares were untraded.
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