Nikkei seen lifted from 1-mth closing low by Wall St

TOKYO, July 24 (Reuters) A rise in U.S. stocks is seen helping lift the Tokyo market on Tuesday from a one-month closing low hit the previous day, with investors picking up recent decliners such as Canon Inc. and other exporters.

Another focus in the market may be Toshiba Corp. The Nikkei business daily said on Tuesday Toshiba is likely to post a 3 percent rise in group net profit for the first half of the business year due to an easing of the slide in chip prices.

''The rise in the U.S. market is a relief for investors, and today is going to be a calm day,'' said Tsuyoshi Segawa, an equity strategist at Shinko Securities.

''But U.S. stocks' rebound had been somewhat factored in, and an advance here will likely be limited to a rebound among recent losers.'' Nikkei futures traded in Chicago finished the previous session at 18,015.00, above the Osaka close by 45 points, pointing to a slightly higher opening.

Segawa said the Nikkei would likely move between 18,000 and 18,100 on Tuesday after finishing Monday down 1.07 percent at 17,963.64, the lowest close since June 28.

Segawa also said large-scale merger and acquisition activity in the United States and Europe is seen as a stimulus to Japanese stocks, and he would watch bank shares after British bank Barclays raised its bid for Dutch group ABN AMRO to 67.5 billion euros ( billion) on Monday.

Steel and metal stocks will likely continue to be popular, he said.

U.S. stock indexes gained on Monday as takeover news and strong profits from large-cap companies reassured investors after a broad sell-off at the end of last week.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.67 percent to finish at 13,943.42.

Japanese companies scheduled to report results on Tuesday include Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. and Aiful Corp.

STOCKS TO WATCH --KDDI Corp. T> Japan's second-biggest phone company posted a 15.6 percent gain in quarterly operating profit on Monday on cost cuts and continued growth at its wireless unit.

--Chip stocks Orders for Japanese equipment used to make microchips exceeded sales in June for the first time in three months on rising chip demand, an industry group said on Monday.

-- Risa Partners Inc.

Real estate investment firm Risa Partners revised up its earnings forecast for the six months to June thanks to strong fund and investment banking business.

The company now expects a group net profit for the period of 1.75 billion yen (.46 million), compared with its previous profit estimate of 1.472 billion yen. Its forecast for recurring profit was also raised by 33.4 percent to 2.65 billion yen from 1.986 billion yen.

-- Nissan Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp.

Nissan said it would resume production on Wednesday at all six of its Japanese factories after a temporary suspension planned through Tuesday due to problems in procuring key components from a supplier hit by last week's earthquake in northwest Japan.

Toyota Motor also said it would resume work at two-thirds of its car assembly lines in Japan on Tuesday after the earthquake cut off supplies of key components to its factories, and kept its global sales targets unchanged for 2007.

-- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. T> Mitsubishi Heavy unveiled an aggressive nuclear sales target on Monday despite the July 16 earthquake, which closed the world's biggest nuclear power plant, shaking Japanese public confidence in the technology.

Mitsubishi Heavy said it aims to triple worldwide sales of its pressurised water reactors and of third-generation, 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plants being developed jointly with French company Areva, the world's largest maker of nuclear reactors, to 600 billion yen by 2017.

REUTERS DKS PM0510