Asian stocks rose for a fifth straight week as government and industry reports from the US and China fueled confidence in a global economic recovery.
BHP Billiton Ltd, a mining company that counts China as its biggest market for sales, rose 1.1 percent in Sydney as commodity prices gained after reports showed Chinese manufacturing increased last month. Korea Zinc Co gained 6.5 percent in Seoul. Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, a Japanese carmaker that counts North America as its biggest market, leapt 11 percent in Tokyo after US reports on capital-goods orders, economic growth, unemployment and business activity.
The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index rose 1.2 percent this week to 127.06 after climbing to a five-month high. It gained 8.4 percent last month, the largest monthly advance since July last year. The 12 percent climb in the three months ended on Friday was the biggest quarterly increase of the past year.
“Rising capital investments in the US is a positive sign that shows companies expect demand to increase in the next few months,” said Ng Soo Nam, Singapore-based chief investment officer at Nikko Asset Management Co, which has US$123 billion in assets globally. “The stock rally may continue given that valuations are fair, but we have to watch whether the improvements in economic data are sustainable.”
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 0.7 percent. China’s Shanghai Composite Index rose 2.5 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index increased 1.1 percent in their holiday-shortened weeks. South Korea’s KOSPI advanced 1.6 percent.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index dropped 0.5 percent. Nufarm Ltd, the country’s largest supplier of farm chemicals, plunged after UBS AG cut the company’s investment rating to “sell” from “neutral.”
Taiwan’s TAIEX closed little changed on Friday in quiet -trading, with investors remaining on the sidelines watching closely how companies will report their sales for last month this week, dealers said.
The weighted index rose 6.40 points, or 0.08 percent, to 8,244.18 after moving between 8,220.73 and 8,260.28 on turnover of NT$111.96 billion (US$3.58 billion).
The market opened up 0.26 percent as rotational buying resumed in select old economy stocks, but the gains were compromised by cautious sentiment ahead of the sales announcements for last month by electronics heavyweights, the dealers said.
The construction sector outperformed the broader market as the central bank did not come up with any widely expected dramatic measures to impact the industry on Thursday, such as the imposition of housing loan limitations to cap local property prices, they said.
In its quarterly policy making meeting, the central bank announced a hike of the key discount rate by 0.125 percentage points to 1.5 percent.
“The central bank move was better than expected, despite the rate hike,” Concord Securities (康和證券) analyst Allen Lin said. “The market was kind of relieved that the central bank imposed no further tightening regulations directly on the property market.”
Lin said he was expecting the market to continue to move in a trading range between 8,200 points and 8,400 points in the week ahead.
Other markets on Friday:
Manila closed 0.29 percent, or 11.92 points, higher from Thursday at 4,111.99.
Mumbai soared 1.87 percent, or 375.92 points, from Thursday to close at 20,445.04. India’s stock markets have been fueled on hopes of sustained economic growth and on record overseas fund flows, which stand at US$18.3 billion this year.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by