Japanese Market Is Slightly Higher

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is slightly higher in choppy trading on Tuesday, extending the gains in the previous three sessions, with the Nikkei 225 staying above the 29,100 level, despite the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight, boosted by gains in technology and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is up 7.15 points or 0.02 percent at 29,130.33, after touching a high of 29,278.80 earlier. Japanese shares ended significantly higher on Monday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is edging down 0.5 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging up 0.5 percent. Among automakers, Honda is edging down 0.1 percent and Toyota is losing almost 1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is gaining almost 4 percent, Screen Holdings is adding almost 1 percent and Tokyo Electron is up more than 1 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial are losing more than 1 percent each, while Mizuho Financial is down almost 1 percent.

The major exporters are mixed. Canon is edging up 0.3 percent and Panasonic is gaining more than 1 percent, while Mitsubishi Electric is losing more than 1 percent and Sony is edging down 0.5 percent. Among the other major gainers, Renesas Electronics is gaining 4.5 percent.

Conversely, there are no other major losers.

In economic news, the monetary base in Japan was down 1.7 percent on year in April, the Bank of Japan said on Tuesday - coming in at 675.928 trillion yen. That follows the upwardly revised 1.0 percent contraction in March (originally -1.2 percent). The seasonally adjusted monetary base slumped 7.5 percent on month after jumping 13.5 percent in the previous month.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 137 yen-range on Tuesday.

On the Wall Street, stocks showed a lack of direction throughout much of the trading session on Friday following the notable advance seen to close out the previous week. The major averages spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line.

The major averages eventually ended the session slightly lower. While the Dow dipped 46.46 points or 0.1 percent to 34,051.70, the Nasdaq slipped 13.96 points or 0.1 percent to 12,212.60 and the S&P 500 edged down 1.61 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 4,167.87.

Meanwhile, the major European markets all remained closed on the day.

Crude oil prices tumbled on Monday, weighed down by concerns about economic growth and worries about the outlook for energy demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June sank $1.12 or 1.5 percent at $75.66 a barrel.