Asian stocks advanced last year, capping the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index’s biggest two-year gain since 2004, as improving corporate earnings and US economic stimulus measures offset concern over Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and China’s anti-inflation measures.
The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index climbed 14.3 percent last year to 137.70, extending 2009’s 34 percent gain, supported by central banks cutting borrowing costs and governments boosting spending to shore up their economies to tackle the global recession. The Asia-Pacific gauge sank by a record in 2008 as the credit crisis and a deepening global recession pummeled corporate profits around the world.
Taiwan’s TAIEX rose 64.60 or 0.7 percent, to 8,972.50 at the 1:30pm close on Friday, the highest since May 22, 2008. The gauge rose 784.39 points, or 9.6 percent, last year, extending 2009’s 78 percent rally.
Genius Electronic Optical Co (玉晶光電), a lens maker, is the index’s best performer this year with a 574 percent surge, while Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管), a flat-panel maker, is the worst with a 55 percent slump.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed 5.3 percent in the past year, extending 2009’s 52 percent increase, the steepest since 1999. South Korea’s KOSPI jumped 22 percent, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index declined 2.6 percent.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 3 percent, as a strengthening yen dimmed the earnings prospects of some of the nation’s exporters. The yen was at its strongest annual average level since currencies began trading freely in 1971, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and based on each day’s closing price.
China’s Shanghai Composite Index declined 14 percent, the worst performer in Asia, as the government ordered banks to set aside more reserves six times last year and boosted rates to tame inflation and curb asset bubbles following record gains in lending and property prices. The benchmark also posted the biggest decline among 15 of the world’s largest stock markets.
Material, energy and industrial stocks rose the most among the 10 industry groups tracked on the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index last year, where stocks are valued at 14.8 times estimated earnings on average, compared with 14.7 times for the US Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and 12.3 for the Europe STOXX 600 Index.
The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index’s gains for last year take its two-year advance to 54 percent, the steepest since the period ended December 2004, when the region emerged from a retreat triggered by the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000. Gains in 2009 — following 2008’s record 43 percent drop — were spurred by record lending and government stimulus measures in China, which helped pull the world economy out of recession.
Indian shares ended the year up, with the leading 30-share SENSEX adding 120.02 points or 0.59 percent on Friday to 20,509.09.
The SENSEX, which reached a record intra-day high in early November of more than 21,000 points, added 3,044,28 points year-on-year, a rise of 17.43 percent
Manila edged up 1.83 points to 4,201.14 on the last trading day of the year. The index has gained 38 percent over the past 12 months, making it one of the most successful in the region this year.
Wellington was up 2.44 percent for the year at 3,309.03.
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