Asian stocks rose for a fourth week, the longest streak of gains this year, as US jobs data beat estimates and the Japanese parliament approved Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s nominees to the country’s central bank board.
Nissan Motor Co advanced 2.4 percent, leading gains among companies that get sales in the US, while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc, Japan’s biggest publicly traded bank, rose 7.7 percent amid speculation that Abe will implement policies to stimulate the economy and end 15 years of falling prices.
Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd (新鴻基地產) fell 7.6 percent, relinquishing its place as Asia’s biggest developer by value, as Hong-Kong-listed real-estate companies tumbled on concern that policymakers are stepping up efforts to cool home prices and as local mortgage rates were increased.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index advanced 0.8 percent to 136.66. The gauge has climbed 5.6 percent this year as data signaled the world’s biggest economy is recovering and investors bet that the Bank of Japan will loosen monetary policy. Chinese shares fell this week amid concern about government efforts to control prices.
The US jobs data “has shown the world’s largest economy is really starting to gain momentum and, of course, that’s all positive for financial markets,” Perpetual Investments’ Matthew Sherwood said.
Gains this year left the MSCI Asia Pacific Index trading at 14.9 times average estimated earnings, compared with 14.1 for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and 12.8 times for the STOXX Europe 600 Index, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Taiwan’s TAIEX slid 1.1 percent from 7,960.51 on March 8, ending Friday’s trading down 0.31 percent, or 24.27 points, at 7,927.49. Leading smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) on Friday shed 2.7 percent to NT$234.5, as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) fell by 0.96 percent to NT$103.0.
South Korea’s KOSPI dropped 1 percent this week, as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slid 2.4 percent, led by property developers, as data showed China’s consumer prices rose at the fastest pace in 10 months and People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川) said monetary policy is “no longer relaxed.”
Only Italy’s FTSE MIB Index offered lower returns this year among the 24 developed market benchmarks monitored by Bloomberg.
Sun Hung Kai tumbled 7.6 percent to HK$106.20, the lowest level since October last year. New World Development Co (新世界發展) dropped 5.2 percent to HK$13.26.
China is set to complete a once-a-decade handover of power at the National People’s Congress in Beijing today. Leaders are trying to support a rebound in growth from a 13-year low without spurring excessive inflation or risks in the financial system. The Shanghai Composite Index retreated 1.7 percent this week.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average increased 2.3 percent for the week to the highest level since September 2008. Haruhiko Kuroda, an advocate of aggressive monetary policy easing, was confirmed as Bank of Japan governor on Friday by parliament’s upper house, along with deputy governor nominees Kikuo Iwata and Hiroshi Nakaso.
New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index rose for a fourth week, adding 0.8 percent, after Reserve Bank of New Zealand Governor Graeme Wheeler pledged to keep borrowing costs at a record low until next year.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index and Singapore’s Straits Times Index both slipped 0.1 percent.
In other markets on Friday:
Mumbai fell 0.73 percent, or 142.88 points, from Thursday to 19,427.56.
Manila declined by 0.60 percent, or 40.11 points, to 6,654.60.
Wellington rose 0.14 percent, or 5.96 points, to 4,387.06
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