Japan's Nikkei trades sideways as investors await earnings

The U.S. suspended its bombing campaign on Iran after nearly two weeks of heavy airstrikes, while a senior Iranian official told Reuters Tehran would also halt its own attacks as long as Washington did the same. Oil prices fell more than 5% on Monday on expectations of a diplomatic off-ramp. O/R

"Reduced concern over higher crude prices should support Japanese shares overall, while buybacks are also expected in stocks that had seen an increasingly corrective tone through last week," said Takayuki Miyajima, senior economist at Sony Financial Group.

"However, with major U.S. cloud companies due to report earnings this week, investors may be reluctant to aggressively chase the upside as they assess capital spending plans and the monetisation of AI investment," he said.

Investors are focused on a busy week of earnings announcements in the U.S. and Japan, as well as central bank decisions. In Tokyo, chip-testing equipment maker Advantest 6857.T is due to report earnings on Wednesday, while memory chipmaker Kioxia 285A.T is scheduled to report on Friday.

Market breadth was positive, with 173 advancers on the Nikkei 225 against 52 decliners.

Kioxia 285A.T slid 7%, while cables and optical fibre producer Fujikura 5803.T lost 6.18%. Shin-Etsu Chemical 4063.T, a global leader in silicon and chemical products, fell as much as 6.13% after its full-year consolidated net profit forecast missed market expectations.

By contrast, software testing and quality assurance services provider Shift 3697.T was the top gainer on the index, rising 7.04%, followed by consulting services provider BayCurrent 6532.T, gaining 6.04%, and online game publisher Nexon 3659.T, up by 5.68%.

Japan's Nikkei share average struggled for direction on Monday, as a halt in United States attacks on Iran pushed oil prices lower, though investors avoided aggressive bets ahead of key earnings this week.