Asian stocks ended the week little changed, as investors weighed optimism about corporate earnings against concern the US Federal Reserve may start paring stimulus and as the greenback gained against Asian currencies.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dipped less than 0.1 percent to 141.24 this week amid the busiest part of the earnings season for shares on the measure. The Fed maintained its stimulus plan while publishing a policy statement that economists at Citigroup Inc and Barclays PLC said opens the possibility of reduced bond purchases as soon as next month. The Asia Dollar Index fell 0.4 percent as the rupiah, yuan, ringgit and rupee all retreated from a week earlier.
“It’s becoming more and more obvious which companies are strong, and which are weak,” said Seiichiro Iwamoto, who helps oversee the equivalent of US$33 billion at Mizuho Asset Management Co. “We usually see cyclical weakness for the global economy from around now through February, so I think we’re seeing the best for corporate earnings being reported now.”
Japan’s TOPIX added 0.4 percent this week. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index advanced 0.5 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 2.4 percent and China’s Shanghai Composite climbed 0.8 percent as a report showed China’s manufacturing exceeded estimates. South Korea’s KOSPI also advanced 0.3 percent.
However, Taiwan’s TAIEX bucked the trend, with the index closing the week down 0.5 percent. The local bourse started the week strong, surging past the 8,400-point mark on Monday, before selling on the last two sessions amid concerns over corporate earnings drove it lower to 8,388.18 on Friday.
Disappointment over touchpanel supplier TPK Holding Co’s (宸鴻) third-quarter results led a wave of selling in tech stocks, which spread to old economy and financial stocks, dealers said.
“TPK’s third-quarter results disappointed the market, and its gloomy assessment for the fourth quarter also prompted investors to dump the stock,” Concord Securities (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang said.
Singapore’s Straits Times Index also slid 0.1 percent for the week.
More than 300 companies on the MSCI Asia Pacific Index reported earnings this week. Of those announcing quarterly results this season and for which Bloomberg compiles estimates, half posted profit that beat expectations, while 53 percent exceeded sales estimates, the data show.
Panasonic jumped 13 percent to ￥1,046 in Tokyo, its highest since April 2011, after doubling its net income forecast to ￥100 billion (US$1 billion). Sales will rise to ￥7.4 trillion, the company projected.
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group advanced 3.3 percent to A$33.72 in Sydney and touched a record on Thursday after saying cash profit climbed to A$3.3 billion (US$3.2 billion) in the six months ended Sept. 30 from A$2.9 billion a year earlier.
Still, earnings at some companies disappointed investors. Sony Corp plunged 9.9 percent to ￥1,668 after unexpectedly lowering its full-year profit forecast by 40 percent, on stalling demand for TVs and digital cameras and box office flops.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 2.7 percent last month for a second monthly increase. That pushed its price-earnings ratio to 13.6 times estimated earnings on Friday from 12.7 at the end of August, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with multiples of 15.9 for the S&P 500 and 14.9 for the STOXX Europe 600.
In other markets on Friday:
Mumbai ended up 0.15 percent or 32.29 points higher from Thursday to a new record of 21,196.81.
Wellington was flat, edging up 4.11 points from Thursday to 4,913.83.
GROWING OWINGS: While Luxembourg and China swapped the top three spots, the US continued to be the largest exposure for Taiwan for the 41st consecutive quarter The US remained the largest debtor nation to Taiwan’s banking sector for the 41st consecutive quarter at the end of September, after local banks’ exposure to the US market rose more than 2 percent from three months earlier, the central bank said. Exposure to the US increased to US$198.896 billion, up US$4.026 billion, or 2.07 percent, from US$194.87 billion in the previous quarter, data released by the central bank showed on Friday. Of the increase, about US$1.4 billion came from banks’ investments in securitized products and interbank loans in the US, while another US$2.6 billion stemmed from trust assets, including mutual funds,
AI TALENT: No financial details were released about the deal, in which top Groq executives, including its CEO, would join Nvidia to help advance the technology Nvidia Corp has agreed to a licensing deal with artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Groq, furthering its investments in companies connected to the AI boom and gaining the right to add a new type of technology to its products. The world’s largest publicly traded company has paid for the right to use Groq’s technology and is to integrate its chip design into future products. Some of the start-up’s executives are leaving to join Nvidia to help with that effort, the companies said. Groq would continue as an independent company with a new chief executive, it said on Wednesday in a post on its Web
RESPONSE: The Japanese Ministry of Finance might have to intervene in the currency markets should the yen keep weakening toward the 160 level against the US dollar Japan’s chief currency official yesterday sent a warning on recent foreign exchange moves, after the yen weakened against the US dollar following Friday last week’s Bank of Japan (BOJ) decision. “We’re seeing one-directional, sudden moves especially after last week’s monetary policy meeting, so I’m deeply concerned,” Japanese Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs Atsushi Mimura told reporters. “We’d like to take appropriate responses against excessive moves.” The central bank on Friday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years, but Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda chose to keep his options open rather than bolster the yen,
Even as the US is embarked on a bitter rivalry with China over the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), Chinese technology is quietly making inroads into the US market. Despite considerable geopolitical tensions, Chinese open-source AI models are winning over a growing number of programmers and companies in the US. These are different from the closed generative AI models that have become household names — ChatGPT-maker OpenAI or Google’s Gemini — whose inner workings are fiercely protected. In contrast, “open” models offered by many Chinese rivals, from Alibaba (阿里巴巴) to DeepSeek (深度求索), allow programmers to customize parts of the software to suit their
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