Tokyo - Tokyo stocks opened higher on Wednesday, helped by a halt in the dollar's weakness and rallies on Wall Street on hopes the US is working towards defusing trade conflicts with China.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 0.20%, or 43.53 points, to 22 263.26 in early trade while the broader Topix index was up 0.04%, or 0.66 points, at 1 686.08.
"With four consecutive days of rallies in the US market and the yen's (appreciation) against the dollar settling down, purchases are seen leading" the Tokyo market, SBI Securities said in a commentary.
However, with few fresh market-moving topics other than the US-China trade talks, the upward movement may soon lose momentum, analysts said.
The dollar fetched ¥110.12 in early Asian trade, against ¥110.27 in New York and ¥110.02 in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Turning to individual shares, commercial vehicle specialist Isuzu Motors rose 2.91% to ¥1 632 after a brokerage firm upgraded its estimate on the shares.
Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal was up 2.39% at ¥2 296.5, trading house Toyota Tsusho rose 1.91% to ¥3 730 and Sharp climbed 2.84% to ¥435.
In New York, US stocks rose for a fourth straight session with the S&P 500 hitting a record during the session. The Dow ended up 0.3% at 25 822.29.
Telecom shares were down for a second consecutive day following the top Japanese government spokesman's comment that mobile phone call costs were too expensive.
SoftBank was down 1.72% at ¥9 652, NTT DoCoMo was lower by 1.77% at ¥2 770 and KDDI dropped 3.28% to ¥2 856.5.
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