TOKYO:Japan's Nikkei average rebounded on Tuesday, tracking gains in Wall Street, while Apple suppliers fell on a report that the tech giant has scrapped plans to boost production of its new iPhone XR.
Toyota Motor surged 2.1 per cent after the company raised its full-year operating profit forecast by 4.3 per cent to 2.4 trillion yen from the previously 2.3 trillion yen and said it would buy back up to 250 billion yen of its own shares.
The Nikkei rose 1.1 per cent to 22,147.75, recouping much of Monday's 1.6 per cent drop.
With potentially market-moving US mid-term elections scheduled later in the day, investors stayed cautious. The Nikkei moved in a narrow 167-point range.
"There were more investors going long today than going short as most of them wanted to buy back from recent selling," said Yutaka Miura, a senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities.
"Unless the election result defies market expectations, stocks are expected to rise."
Opinion polls show a strong chance that the Democratic Party could win control of the House of Representatives in the US mid-term elections later in the day, after two years of wielding no practical political power in Washington.
President Donald Trump's Republican Party is seen as likely to keep the Senate.
Buying was particularly strong in recently beaten-down stocks, with 32 of the Topix's 33 subsectors in positive territory.
Automakers gained ground, with Honda Motor advancing 3.1 per cent and Nissan Motor gaining 1.6 per cent.
SoftBank Group Corp, which booked strong earnings for July-September, pulled back 2.0 per cent after soaring as much as 4 per cent in early trade.
It posted an operating profit of 705.7 billion yen ($6.23 billion), helped by higher valuations on high-tech bets from its Saudi-backed Vision Fund, compared with 395.6 billion yen a year earlier under different accounting standards.
However, traders said there was uncertainty about the Vision Fund's future amid a global outcry over the killing of a prominent journalist by Saudi Arabian security personnel.
Apple suppliers were sold after the Nikkei business daily reported on Monday evening that Apple Inc had told its smartphone assemblers Foxconn and Pegatron to halt plans for additional production lines dedicated to the iPhone XR it launched last month.
Japan Display Inc dropped 3.7 per cent, TDK Corp shed 1.9 per cent and Nitto Denko Corp dropped 2.5 per cent.
The broader Topix gained 1.2 per cent to 1,659.35.
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