Nikkei seen opening higher after rise on Wall St

TOKYO, Sep 21: Tokyo stocks are seen likely to open higher on Thursday as investors are expected to return to technology shares and exporters following a rally on Wall Street.

US crude oil futures settled at their lowest level in six months on Wednesday, diving to a barrel near the close, which could put energy stocks under pressure but may help others by easing concern about high material costs squeezing their profits.

A higher profit forecast by Toyota Motor Corp should also lift market sentiment.

''We can expect the market to rebound'' after rises in U S stocks, said Shinji Igarashi, equity manager in the sales department at Chuo Securities.

Nikkei futures traded in Chicago suggested a higher opening.

Chicago's Nikkei December futures closed at 15,850 on Wednesday, up 170 points from the Osaka finish.

Still, upside potential may be limited with the Nikkei struggling to break above 16,000, Igarashi said.

''Foreign investors have been net sellers of Japanese stocks and institutional investors are unlikely to build new positions ahead of mid-term book closings at the end of this month,'' he said.

Orders for Japanese stocks placed through foreign securities houses before the start of trade have shown more sell orders than buy orders this week.

On Wednesday, the Nikkkei gave up about 1 percent to end at a five-week closing low due partly to concerns about a loss warning from Yahoo Inc.

Traders expect the Nikkei average to trade between 15,700 and 15,900 on Thursday.

STOCKS TO WATCH

Toyota Motor Corp, Japan's top auto maker raised its half-year parent net profit outlook by 32 percent on Wednesday and said it aims to boost its global vehicle sales by 11 percent over the next two years.

-- JFE Holdings Inc. The world's fourth-largest steel maker has abandoned plans to build a blast furnace in China and has instead decided to construct a facility to promote automotive steel sheets there, business daily Nihon Keizai reported on Thursday.

-- Mitsui&Co. Ltd. Trading house Mitsui will acquire the locomotive leasing business of Germany's Siemens AG, gaining access to a fleet of some 100 diesel and electric locomotives and significantly expanding the scale of its rail-related leasing activities in Europe, the Nihon Keizai reported on Thursday.

--Yakult Honsha Co. Ltd. Yakult, a maker of dairy products, will likely see its group pretax profit for the six months to September surge 20 percent to about 17.5 billion yen (9 million), a turnaround from earlier predictions of a 4 percent fall, thanks to better-than-expected overseas sales, the Nihon Keizai reported.

--TV Tokyo Corp. Japanese billionaire investor activist Eitaro Itoyama told Reuters on Wednesday he lifted his stake in TV Tokyo, Japan's fifth-biggest TV company, to slightly above 5 percent earlier in the day, up from 3 per cent.

REUTERS