Japan Stocks gain on upbeat offshore lead; eye on Trump's address

Headline indices of the Japan share market inclined on Wednesday, 06 February 2019, as overnight strength on Wall Street and cheaper yen buoyed sentiment ahead of the keenly awaited State of the Union address by U.S. President Donald Trump. Total 22 sub-indexes out of 33 sub-indexes of TOPIX closed in green terrain, with shares in Marine Transportation, Iron & Steel, Chemicals, Precision Instruments, Real Estate, and Securities & Commodities Futures issues being notable gainers, whereas Mining, Electric Power & Gas, and Information & Communication issues were in red terrain. Around late afternoon trade, the 225-issue Nikkei index added 67.12 points, or 0.32%, at 20,911.57. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange gained 3.43 points, or 0.22%, to 1,586.31.

U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday as largely upbeat corporate results fueled investor optimism ahead of the highly awaited State of the Union address by President Donald Trump. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 164.37 points, or 0.65%, to 25,403.74, the S&P 500 gained 10.64points, or 0.39%, to 2,735.51 and the Nasdaq Composite added 51.44 points, or 0.7%, to 7,398.97.

US President Donald Trump will deliver his State of the Union address during Tokyo trading hours and "expectations are for the President to make comments on North Korea, the US economy, China trade talks and border security.

Small car specialist Suzuki was down 1.9% after its third quarter operating profit was lower than market expectations.

SoftBank was up 1.8% ahead of its nine months to December earnings reports due later Wednesday.

CURRENCY NEWS: Japanese yen was little changed against greenback on Wednesday. The dollar fetched 109.90 yen in Asian trade, little changed from 109.97 yen in New York late Tuesday but was stronger than below 109 yen levels late last week.

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