Asian stocks gained as rising home sales in the US added to signs the world’s biggest economy is recovering even as Greece struggles to negotiate with creditors ahead of a meeting of EU finance ministers on the debt crisis.
Sony Corp, Japan’s biggest exporter of consumer electronics, climbed 4 percent to ¥1,422 in Tokyo.
Olympus Corp, a maker of optical equipment that has lost US$4 billion in market value amid an accounting scandal, climbed 8.2 percent to ¥1,297 in Tokyo. Rather than force the camera maker to be delisted, the Tokyo Stock Exchange fined the company ¥10 million (US$130,000) and required annual reports on efforts to improve management, the bourse said on Friday last week.
Reliance Industries Ltd, India’s biggest company by market value, slipped 2.5 percent to 773.25 rupees in Mumbai after the owner of the world’s biggest oil refining complex said third-quarter net income declined 14 percent from a year earlier to 44.4 billion rupees (US$884 million).
That missed the 45.6 billion rupee median estimate of 29 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Exporters to the US advanced as sales of previously owned US homes rose for a third month in December to the highest level since January last year. The increase signals that the US housing market, which triggered the global recession, ended last year with positive momentum.
Companies that receive revenue from Europe declined ahead of a meeting of finance ministers in Brussels to discuss new budget rules for the region, a financial firewall to protect indebted states and a Greek debt swap.
Greek officials and private creditors continued negotiations on a deal that is crucial to lowering the country’s debt and securing more financial aid before it faces a 14.5 billion euro (US$18.7 billion) bond payment on March 20.
Canon dropped 1.2 percent to ¥3,390 in Tokyo. Shimano Inc, a bicycle parts maker that counts Europe as its biggest market, fell 0.9 percent to ¥3,690.
“Any weakness is a good buying opportunity given improving economic data out of the US,” said Nader Naeimi, a Sydney-based senior strategist at AMP Capital Investors Ltd, which manages nearly US$100 billion. “Greece can go hot and cold very quickly.”
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average closed little changed, after declining as much as 0.3 percent and rising as much as 0.3 percent. The BSE India Sensitive Index added 0.1 percent, reversing losses of as much as 0.5 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index lost 0.3 percent.
Markets in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan were closed for holidays.
In the foreign exchange market, the euro slipped against the US dollar and yen in Asia yesterday as the market awaited a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on a strategy to tackle the region’s debt crisis.
The euro bought US$1.2897 and ¥99.36 in Tokyo afternoon trade, down from US$1.2933 and ¥99.61 in New York late on Friday. The US dollar was flat, trading at ¥77.04.
The euro was likely to remain prone to downward pressure as investors watch for any developments in talks on Greek debt as well as the European finance ministers’ meeting later yesterday, a senior dealer at a major bank in Tokyo said.
“There will be sharp euro-selling if the negotiations break down,” he told Dow Jones Newswires.
The market is likely to be relatively quiet during Asian trading hours with many regional markets closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, he added.
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