TOKYO SHARES BARELY PERFORM AS MARKET AWAITS FOR MORE POSITIVE TRADE SIGNALS

TOKYO-Japanese shares made minimum gains on Friday and were posed to approach its third month of earnings.  In line, investors hoped that the recent US legislation supporting Hong Kong protesters would not prevent US-China trade deal from getting signed.

Benchmark Nikkei moved minimally at 23,408. 04 in latter part of the morning trade but set to reach 2.1% increase this November. It was also set to clock in 1.2% gain, a potential boost to hit its first weekly rise in three weeks.

US S&P 500 mini futures inched lower with 0.2% as New York markets were closed on Thursday in celebration of Thanksgiving and with a bunch of investors observing market status after the recent US legislation supporting Hong Kong protesters.

China released a warning of putting up “firm counter measures” to protect its security and sovereignty against US government’s scheme of backing the protesters in Hong Kong.

“The question is what real actions Beijing will take. The working assumption for most investors is that this will not derail the trade talks, given China is suffering from an economic slowdown,” said Norihiro Fujito, chief investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.

The dollar was quoted 109.50 per yen, putting a narrow difference from its six-month high of 109.61 last Wednesday.

Previous decliners Toshiba Corp, Sony Corp, Mitsubishi Motors Corp edged higher with 2.8%, 0.8%, 1.0% gains.

Panasonic Corp gained 2.4% following the firm’s decision of selling its loss-making semiconductor unit to Taiwan’s Nuvoton Technology Corp for $250 million.