Japan stocks rebounded slightly Monday, led by oil companies' shares as New York oil futures reached $127.82 per barrel in off-hours trading on Friday. But the upward trend was thwarted because of concerns over the U.S. economy.

The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average gained 50.13 points, or 0.35 percent from Friday to 14,269.61. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was up 8.38 points, or 0.60 percent, to 1,404.25. Among all the TSE first section trading issues, 1,037 increased and 595 decreased. The trading amount reached 2,231.55 million stocks or 2,417.4 billion yen. The Japanese currency is being traded in the level of 104 yen per a U.S. dollar.

Oil company issues, such as INPEX Corp. and JAPEX Co., led gains while finance and metal product issues declined.

Short-term funds, such as hedge funds, flowed in today, but long-term fund from overseas disappeared, traders said, according to newspaper Kabushiki Shimbun.

Especially today, it seems that hedge fund aggressively bought resource related issues. It seems soon investors will sell issues as profit-taking.

It is said in Japan that the national sentiment has improved but investors still worry about the economic outlook in the United States. The US is Japan is the main export market for the nation.

Japan Investment Tokyo Stock Exchange Nikkei 225