Asian stocks rallied last week with benchmarks in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea rising for a fourth week as a strengthening US economy boosted optimism about regional growth. Toyota Motor Corp and Johnson Electric Holdings Ltd led gains.
"The US is showing a fast economic rebound and we're catching up with it, with exporters in the lead," said Kim Kyeong Seob, who helps oversee the equivalent of US$850 million at KB Investment Trust Management Co in Seoul. He owns more shares in LG Electronics than the stock's 3 percent Kospi weighting.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average added 3 percent, touching 14-month highs before paring gains later in the week. The Topix index gained 2.4 percent, its third advance in four weeks.
Indonesia's key index posted a 9.9 percent advance, its biggest weekly gain in more than four years as investors warmed to government efforts to restore political stability.
Thailand's SET Index rose to its highest in five-and-a-half years on optimism a growing Thai economy will boost stocks.
Toyota rose 8.1 percent to 3,480 yen this week, leading gains among automakers. An industry report showed the world's third- largest carmaker outsold DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler for the first time in the U.S. last month.
Hong Kong's Johnson Electric, the world's second-largest maker of small electric motors, gained 4.1 percent to HK$12.65.
Johnson gets a third of its revenue in the US from selling small electric motors for use in cars and consumer electronics.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 2.4 percent for the week, its fourth weekly rally. The index hasn't risen for four weeks straight or more since an eight-week advance ended June 20.
US car sales hit an annual rate of 19 million last month, the highest since 21.3 million in October 2001, when automakers first marketed no-interest loans, Autodata Corp said.
Japanese automakers, including Honda Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co, were also boosted by a decline in the value of the yen against the dollar. A weaker Japanese currency means exporters get more for their dollar-denominated sales while their products become more competitive.
Honda, which gets almost 90 percent of its operating profit in North America, advanced 7 percent this week to ?5,080. The automaker based its forecasts for this business year on 116 yen to the dollar.
Nissan Motor Co, Japan's No. 3 automaker, gained 6.9 percent, to 1,339. Every ?1 drop against the dollar will translate into a ?9 billion increase in Nissan's group pretax profit.
The US Institute for Supply Management's factory index increased to 54.7 last month, the highest reading since December, from 51.8 in July. It was the second straight month the index has been greater than 50, signaling that manufacturing is growing.
"It appears we are now solidly in a global economic upswing," said Hans Kunnen, who helps manage the equivalent of US$52 billion at Colonial First State Investments, the largest holder of Australian-based assets.
South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co added 1.8 percent over the week, helping the Kospi index to advance 0.3 percent, its fourth gain in as many weeks.
Samsung Electronics Co, the world's second-largest semiconductor maker after Intel Corp, climbed 1.8 percent after Intel said Thursday that third-quarter sales will reach the high end of a forecast it gave two weeks ago, boosting optimism about industrywide demand. Revenue will rise to US$7.6 billion to US$7.8 billion, the company said. The company's earlier estimate was US$7.3 billion to US$7.8 billion.
PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, the nation's largest publicly-traded company, rose 15.9 percent to a 5,300 rupiah last week.
Most of the gains came after an Indonesian court on Tuesday sentenced Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir to four years in prison for taking part in a plot to overthrow the government.
"Despite the terrorism issue and possible rising tension ahead of elections next year, Indonesia's fundamentals remain intact," said Michael Tjoajadi, who helps manage the equivalent of US$95 million of Indonesian equities for Schroders Investment Management in Jakarta.
PT Gudang Garam, the country's largest cigarette maker by sales, surged 14.7 percent to 10,550 rupiah.
Thailand's benchmark SET index closed the week 3.7 percent higher at 557.81, its highest close since Feb. 3, 1998.
Siam Cement, Asia's second-biggest cement maker by capacity after Japan's Taiheiyo Cement Corp, rose 2.4 percent last week.
Thailand's unemployment rate fell to 1.4 percent, its lowest since December during the week. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said yesterday that low inflation will allow the government to buy rice and other agricultural products at above-market prices to boost rural incomes.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day