Asian stocks rose this week, ending a five-week streak of declines, as global policymakers in the US, Europe and China signaled they would take steps to stimulate growth. Shares pared gains yesterday amid concern China’s economy is slowing.
HSBC Holdings PLC, a lender that gets about a fifth of its revenue from North America, rose 3.5 percent in Hong Kong. Gree Inc, a Japanese social networking site, surged 21 percent in Tokyo after announcing a new game. Qantas Airways Ltd, Australia’s largest carrier, slumped 34 percent in Sydney after forecasting a full-year loss.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.1 percent to 111.50 this week, ending its longest weekly losing streak since June last year. The gauge has tumbled 14 percent from this year’s high on Feb. 29 amid concern Europe’s debt crisis is worsening and signs China’s economy is slowing.
“We are likely to see a reasonably strong policy response in a number of countries,” said Angus Gluskie, managing director at White Funds Management in Sydney. “It’s stacking up to be a reasonably good buying opportunity.”
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average gained 0.2 percent this week, while the TOPIX rose 1.2 percent, rebounding after the gauge plunged to its lowest level since 1983 and entered a bear market on disappointing US jobs and China services data.
Taiwan’s TAIEX lost 1.5 percent for the week, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slid 0.3 percent. China’s Shanghai Composite Index retreated 3.9 percent and South Korea’s KOSPI rose 0.1 percent.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was little changed even after a report the nation’s economy expanded twice as fast as economists estimated in the first quarter from the previous three months.
Asian shares declined on the first trading day this week after reports showed China’s non-manufacturing industries expanded at the slowest pace in more than a year and US hiring missed even the most-pessimistic forecast. The unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent and manufacturing index retreated from a 10-month high.
The Asian gauge rallied the next three days as disappointing economic data and signals from global policymakers added to speculation that fresh stimulus measures would be introduced to support growth.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said officials should stand ready to act as the eurozone’s growth outlook worsens. US Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen said the US economy “remains vulnerable to setbacks” and may warrant additional monetary stimulus. Dennis Lockhart, president of the Fed’s Atlanta bank, said extending “Operation Twist,” a policy of buying longer-term bonds, is an “option on the table.”
“There may be fatigue in being bearish,” said Yoji Takeda of RBC Investment Management (Asia) Ltd in Hong Kong. “Stocks look very cheap because they’ve been sold down.”
Shares in the region pared gains on Friday after China cut borrowing costs and relaxed controls on bank lending and deposit rates.
“Growth worries could weigh on market sentiment,” Lu Ting (陸挺), an economist at Bank of America Corp, wrote in a report.
The timing of China’s interest-rate cut suggests that economic data for last month may be worse than expected, he said.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke damped expectations for monetary stimulus later in the week, after saying the Fed would need to assess conditions before deciding if more measures are required to stoke an economy threatened by Europe’s debt crisis and US budget cuts.
In other markets on Friday:
Manila shed 0.57 percent, or 28.89 points, from Thursday to end at 4,994.07.
Wellington closed 0.70 percent, or 24.48 points, lower from Thursday at 3,449.47.
Mumbai gained 0.42 percent, or 69.82 points, from Thursday to 16,718.87.
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