Tokyo shares close higher

TOKYO (AFP): Tokyo stocks shrugged off early losses and closed higher Tuesday after falls on Wall Street, where profit-taking prevailed.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index climbed 0.90 percent, or 289.35 points, to end at 32,506.78, while the broader Topix index rose 0.74 percent, or 16.49 points, to 2,236.28. The dollar fetched 139.34 yen against 139.54 yen in New York on Monday.

Overnight, Wall Street stocks receded from multi-month highs reached last week after a congressional agreement allowed the United States to avoid a catastrophic debt default.

“Following the trend in the US market where the major indexes fell, selling was dominant in Tokyo” in early trade, IwaiCosmo Securities said.

But share prices were later buoyed by “futures buying by foreign investors on the back of expectations of a better market outlook”, the brokerage said.

Shortly before the opening bell, a government survey showed that real-term wages for workers in Japan declined three percent in April from a year earlier.

A separate government report also found household spending in April dipped 4.4% in real terms from the previous year.

Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing jumped 1.72 percent to 34,750 yen, while SoftBank Group firmed 0.97 percent to 6,081 yen.

Toyota rose 1.05 percent to 2,050 yen, while Nintendo added 0.60 percent to 6,120 yen.