Tokyo stocks up

Tokyo stocks rose on Tuesday with investors encouraged by Wall Street rallies and Japan's Takeda surging on reports that the drugmaker would make a formal offer to buy Ireland's Shire. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index gained 0.18 percent or 41.53 points to close at 22,508.69 while the broader Topix index was up 0.37 percent or 6.64 points at 1,779.82.
"Investors welcomed a sign of recovery on Wall Street," said Shinichi Yamamoto, broker at Okasan Securities in Tokyo. "But they are still cautious about uncertain factors, including the Iran issue," Yamamoto told AFP.
President Donald Trump is expected to announce later Tuesday whether he will re-impose US sanctions on Tehran, potentially throwing the entire Iran nuclear deal into question. European leaders and diplomats - including Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who was in Washington on Monday - have been pleading with the United States to retain the core of what Trump called a "flawed" accord.
In the 2015 pact, major powers agreed to ease some sanctions on Iran in exchange for greater scrutiny of its nuclear activities. On Wall Street, stocks finished higher Monday with technology shares leading the market and oil-linked shares gyrating.
The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.8 percent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.4 percent. In Tokyo, Takeda surged 3.99 percent at 4,638 yen hours ahead of a deadline for the Japanese pharmaceutical company's takeover bid for Irish pharmaceutical firm Shire.
Immediately after the market closed, Takeda announced a firm acquisition offer worth £46 billion ($62.5 billion) for Shire, after a series of unofficial bids were turned down. Panasonic rose 0.37 percent to 1,596.5 yen while SoftBank gained 0.33 percent to 8,489 yen, with Honda up 0.30 percent at 3,630 yen.
The dollar fetched 108.94 yen Tuesday afternoon, up from 109.88 in New York late Monday.