TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese stock market has erased early gains and is modestly lower on Tuesday despite the late-stage recovery on Wall Street in a volatile session overnight. Worries about the global economic outlook and the political turmoil in Britain weighed on sentiment.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 12.87 points or 0.06 percent to 21,206.63, after rising to a high of 21,279.02 earlier. Japanese shares hit a six-week low Monday on worries over fresh U.S.-China trade tensions.
The major exporters are mostly lower despite a weaker yen. Mitsubishi Electric is losing more than 2 percent, Panasonic is declining almost 2 percent and Canon is down 0.4 percent, while Sony is adding almost 1 percent.
In the tech sector, Advantest is losing 1 percent and Tokyo Electron is declining more than 1 percent.
Among the major automakers, Honda and Toyota are lower by almost 1 percent each. In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is declining more than 2 percent and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is losing 2 percent.
In the oil space, Inpex is lower by more than 3 percent and Japan Petroleum is falling more than 6 percent after crude oil prices tumbled more than 3 percent overnight.
Among the other major gainers, SoftBank is advancing more than 2 percent after it set the final price for the 2.65 trillion yen initial public offering of its Japanese telecom business at its original target.
Nippon Suisan, Asahi Group, NTT Data, Chubu Electric and Nippon Telegraph & Telephone are all rising more than 1 percent each.
On the flip side, JXTG Holdings and Showa Shell Sekiyu are losing more than 6 percent each, while Kawasaki Kishen Kaisha is declining almost 5 percent and Amada Holdings is lower by more than 4 percent.
In economic news, the Bank of Japan said that the M2 money stock in Japan was up 2.3 percent on year in November, on Tuesday - standing at 1,010.5 trillion yen. That was shy of expectations for an increase of 2.6 percent and down from 2.7 percent in October.
The M3 money stock was up an annual 2.1 percent to 1,342.0 trillion yen - also below forecasts for a gain of 2.3 percent, which would have been unchanged.
Japan will also see fourth-quarter results for the indexes of manufacturing and all industries from BSI.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 113 yen-range on Tuesday.
On Wall Street, stocks staged a significant recovery to close higher on Monday after seeing early weakness that reflected lingering concerns about the global economic outlook along with skepticism about the potential for a long-term trade deal between the U.S. and China. However, traders went bargain hunting after the early weakness.
The Nasdaq climbed 51.27 points or 0.7 percent to 7,020.52, the Dow inched up 34.31 points or 0.1 percent to 24,423.26 and the S&P 500 edged up 4.64 points or 0.2 percent to 2,637.72.
The major European markets also moved to the downside on Monday. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index fell by 0.8 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index both slumped by 1.5 percent.
Crude oil prices fell on Monday as investors remained concerned about a bleak economic outlook after China, the world's biggest oil reporter, reported far weaker than expected exports and imports for November over the weekend. WTI crude for January delivery tumbled $1.61 or 3.1 percent to $51 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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