TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese stock market opened higher on Tuesday following the modest gains overnight on Wall Street amid optimism about US-China trade talks, However, the market has pared early gains and is currently flat, with investors turning cautious ahead of the second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is adding 4.15 points or 0.02 percent to 21,532.38, after touching a high of 21,610.88 earlier. Japanese shares closed higher on Monday.
The major exporters are mixed despite a weaker yen. Mitsubishi Electric is edging up 0.1 percent and Sony is adding 0.2 percent, while Panasonic is losing almost 1 percent and Canon is down 0.2 percent.
In the tech sector, Advantest is adding 0.4 percent, while Tokyo Electron is losing almost 1 percent.
Among the major automakers, Honda is lower by 0.3 percent, while Toyota is up 0.2 percent. In the banking space, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial are declining 0.6 percent each.
In the oil space, Inpex is losing more than 3 percent and Japan Petroleum is down 0.6 percent after crude oil prices fell 3 percent overnight.
Among the other major gainers, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma is rising more than 3 percent and Daiichi Sankyo is higher by almost 3 percent. Mitsui Mining & Smelting, Shiseido Co., Terumo Corp. and Showa Denko are all higher by more than 2 percent each.
On the flip side, Kubota Corp. is lower by almost 3 percent, while T&D Holdings, Fukuoka Financial Group and Tokai Carbon are all down more than 2 percent each.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the upper 110 yen-range on Tuesday.
On Wall Street, stocks closed modestly higher on Monday, paring early gains that came after President Donald Trump announced he intends to postpone a planned increase in U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. Trading activity was somewhat subdued, however, as traders looked ahead to the second summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's testimony before Congress in the coming days also kept some traders on the sidelines.
The Dow edged up 60.14 points or 0.2 percent to 26,091.95, the Nasdaq rose 26.92 points or 0.4 percent to 7,554.46 and the S&P 500 inched up 3.44 points or 1.2 percent to 2,796.11.
The major European markets also moved to the upside on Monday. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index inched up by 0.1 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index rose by 0.3 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.
Crude oil futures fell to their lowest levels in more than a week on Monday, weighed down by a tweet from the U.S. President Donald Trump that said oil prices were getting too high. WTI crude for April ended down $1.78 or 3.1 percent at $55.78 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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