Japan's Nikkei share average ticked up on Monday, clinging near two-year high hit last week, on positive views of the global economy, though turnover was at the lowest level in more than two months.

The Nikkei rose 0.1 per cent to 20,153.35, with the psychologically important 20,000 mark seen as immediate support. On June 20, the index had hit 20,318.

“The 20,000 level is a key support level with positive focus to increase on stock specific earnings, corporate actions and return-on-equity increases,” said Gavin Parry, managing director at Parry International Trading Limited.

The broader Topix was up 0.1 per cent to 1,612.21 but turnover hit its lowest level in more than two months due to lack of macroeconomic themes giving markets a clear direction.

Trading centered on individual shares, such as Toshiba Corp, which tumbled 3.1 per cent after the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) decided to downgrade the stock to its second section from August.

Shares of the TSE's Mothers start-up market also saw active trading, with its index rising 2.3 per cent. Among them, Klab rose 3.1 per cent in heavy trade after the game company announced it would release a new one it has been developing with media company Broccoli this summer. Broccoli shares rose 5.2 per cent.

Elsewhere, financial stocks lost ground, with banks and insurers falling 0.5 per cent and 0.8 per cent, respectively.

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group dropped 1.4 per cent, Dai-ichi Life Holdings shed 0.9 per cent and T&D Holdings declined 0.9 per cent.

Investors watched developments at Takata Corp , which filed for bankruptcy protection.

The embattled air bag inflator maker said it would seek $1.588 billion in financial aid from US-based auto parts supplier Key Safety Systems (KSS).

The Tokyo Stock Exchange said shares of Takata would be delisted on July 27 after it filed for bankruptcy protection. The stock was suspended for all of Monday, after closing at 160 yen on Friday.

“Takata's bankruptcy is bad news, but since the market has long known that the company was in trouble, its impact to overall investor sentiment is limited,” said Yutaka Miura, a senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities.

comment COMMENT NOW