Asian shares rose for a fifth week, the longest winning streak since March, as Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) regained power on pledges to boost economic stimulus and the country’s central bank added to asset purchases. Stocks pared gains as US budget talks stalled.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index advanced 0.7 percent to 128.30 this week, closing on Wednesday at it highest since August last year. Japanese shares led gains as the yen weakened after the LDP captured 294 seats in the 480-member lower house of Japanese parliament in elections last week.
“This is going to have a tremendous impact on the fortunes of Japanese exporters and the economy,” Ed Rogers, chief executive officer at Tokyo-based Rogers Investment Advisors, said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
Asia’s benchmark equities index rose about 18 percent from this year’s low on June 4 as central banks from the US, Europe, Japan and China took action to spur economic growth. The gauge traded at 14.6 times average estimated earnings compared with 13.9 for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and 12.8 times for the STOXX Europe 600 Index, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average advanced 2.1 percent this week. The Nikkei 225 has risen about 15 percent since Nov. 14, when the Japanese previous government said it would call elections. Shares climbed on expectations that the LDP will spend more to boost growth and push for a looser monetary policy.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.9 percent. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index gained 1.9 percent in Wellington. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 0.4 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks stocks on the larger Chinese exchanges, added 0.1 percent.
Among benchmarks that declined, South Korea’s KOSPI fell 0.7 percent. The ruling New Frontier Party’s Park Geun-hye was elected president of South Korea on Thursday, becoming the first woman to lead Asia’s No. 4 economy.
In Taiwan, the TAIEX retreated 2.3 percent this week. Shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange staged a technical rebound yesterday, but trading was light as many foreign investors were away for the weekend, dealers said. While select large-cap stocks, in particular in the high-tech sector, attracted bargain hunters, the gains were limited amid lingering concerns over a pending “fiscal cliff” in the US, dealers said.
In the rare Saturday session, held to make up for a session that will be lost during the extended New Year’s holiday, the market’s weighted index closed up 20.21 points, or 0.26 percent, at 7,540.14, after moving between 7,520.80 and 7,546.90. Turnover was an anemic NT$40.52 billion (US$1.39 billion), the lowest in a single trading session since Jan. 19, 2009.
The market opened up 0.23 percent and moved to the day’s high as bargain hunting focused on certain electronics heavyweights, like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (鴻海精密), which assembles iPads and iPhones for Apple Inc, dealers said. Yet as the TAIEX moved closer to the 7,600 point mark, selling took over to cap the day’s gains, reflecting investors’ concerns over the US, they said.
The fiscal cliff refers to the US$500 billion in expiring tax cuts and automatic spending reductions that will start in the US on Jan. 1 if alternative deficit-cutting measures are not adopted.
“Many investors here are afraid that Wall Street will encounter further volatility due to the fiscal problems,” Mirae Asset Management analyst Arch Shih (施博元) said.
However, Shih added that because many foreign investors were absent from yesterday’s session, the low trading volume could not be used to draw a definitive conclusion on the direction of future trading.
Among the winning high-tech stocks in Taiwan yesterday was TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, which gained 0.95 percent to close at NT$95.70, and Hon Hai, which added 1.26 percent to end at NT$88.10.
The paper and pulp sector scored the highest gains among the eight major sectors of the market, finishing up 2.2 percent. Machinery and electronics shares rose 0.6 percent, financial stocks added 0.4 percent, and the textile and construction sectors each closed up 0.3 percent. Bucking the broader market, cement stocks fell 1.0 percent, and food shares and plastics and chemical stocks ended down 0.3 percent.
In other markets on Friday:
Manila closed 0.45 percent higher from Thursday, adding 26.20 points to 5,823.94.
Wellington fell 0.51 percent, or 20.71 points, to 4,054.74.
Mumbai fell 1.09 percent, or 211.92 points, to 19,242.0 points.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained