Asian stocks fluctuated this week as Japanese and Australian benchmark indices rose after reports showed better-than-estimated economic growth or employment, while China-related companies fell on concern policy makers will raise interest rates to slow inflation.
“Markets tend to go hot and cold on expectations that Chinese authorities will take more steps in their tightening campaign,” said Nader Naeimi, a Sydney-based strategist at AMP Capital Investors Ltd, which manages about US$93 billion and is a unit of AMP Ltd, Australia’s second-largest asset manager. “There is pressure on interest rates in China, but I don’t think there’s any reason they would want to crush growth.”
The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index fell 0.3 percent to 133.09 this week, holding near a one-month high. It jumped 3.5 percent last week after three straight weekly drops in which it lost 4.4 percent. The index has rallied about 22 percent from this year’s low on May 25.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 0.3 percent this week. GDP grew at an annualized 4.5 percent rate in the three months ended Sept. 30, faster than the 3.9 percent reported last month, the Cabinet Office said on Thursday. The median forecast of 19 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a 4.1 percent expansion.
“Investors already knew that higher capital spending in the July-September period would boost Japan’s GDP, but they took it as a good direction once the result was disclosed,” said Masaru Hamasaki, who helps oversee about US$17 billion as chief strategist at Toyota Asset Management Co in Tokyo.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index retreated 0.7 percent this week, China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell less than 0.1 percent and South Korea’s KOSPI rose 1.5 percent.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index climbed 0.9 percent.
Chinese developers and banks declined this week after the statistics bureau brought forward the release of economic data, including inflation, by two days to Friday. The move signals an interest-rate increase may be imminent, said Glenn Maguire, chief economist for Asia at Paris-based Societe Generale SA.
Taiwan’s TAIEX rose 1.1 percent for the week after closing down 0.39 percent on Friday, dragged down by construction shares on fears that the government would impose a new tax to curb speculation in the property market, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 35.01 points on Friday to close at 8,718.83, on turnover of NT$143.34 billion (US$4.75 billion).
In other markets on Friday:
Manila fell 1.75 percent, or 73.67 points, from Thursday to 4,135.75.
Wellington closed 0.23 percent, or 7.64 points, lower from Thursday at 3,272.92.
Mumbai jumped 1.39 percent, or 266.53 points, from Thursday to 19,508.89, buoyed by a better-than-expected production data.
India’s industrial output accelerated at its fastest rate in three months in October to 10.8 percent, data showed on Friday, spurred by robust manufacturing as demand rose during the religious festival season.
Banking and telecoms stocks which lagged in previous days, rose.
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