Tokyo stocks open higher with eyes on corporate earnings

Tokyo stocks opened higher on Monday, shrugging off falls in US shares last week, but investors appeared cautious with corporate earnings season under way in Japan and the US.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index advanced 0.68 percent or 144.34 points to 21,328.94 in early trade, while the broader Topix index was up 0.63 percent or 10.01 points to 1,606.02.

The rebound in Tokyo came after Wall Street stocks finished a volatile week on a sour note Friday after disappointing earnings from Amazon and Google-parent Alphabet sparked a selloff in tech shares.

Tokyo investors have already factored in weak US high-tech sectors, and the focus this week would be Japanese corporate earnings reports for the April-September period, analysts said.

"Falls in the Nikkei index bottomed out last week, but market participants should be paying attention to earnings reports by Japanese and US companies," said Tsuyoshi Nomaguchi, strategist at Daiwa Securities.

The dollar fetched 111.96 yen in early Asian trade, against 111.83 yen in New York on Friday.

In Tokyo, some blue-chip exporters were higher, with Sony trading up 1.28 percent at 5,902 yen and Panasonic up 1.18 percent at 1,237.5 yen.

Fujitsu was down 5.54 percent at 6,615 yen after a brokerage firm revised down its valuation of the information technology firm.

On Wall Street on Friday, the Dow closed down 1.2 percent at 24,688.31.