Most Asian stocks rose on Friday as Japan’s TOPIX capped four weeks of gains following a rally in US markets. Chinese shares fell ahead of the start of the Hong Kong-Shanghai trading link on Monday.
Honda Motor Co, the carmaker that gets about 84 percent of sales from overseas, advanced 2.6 percent after the yen weakened. Nexon Co jumped 15 percent after the online-game maker’s profit beat estimates. Olam International Ltd slumped 6.6 percent in Singapore after the supplier of agricultural commodities posted weaker earnings.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added less than 0.1 percent to 141.73 in Hong Kong on Friday, with about three shares rising for every two that fell. The gauge rose 1.1 percent this week, buoyed by Japan’s TOPIX amid speculation Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would push back another sales-tax increase and go to the polls next month.
The Shanghai Composite Index fell on Friday, paring its weekly advance before the stock link starts on Monday.
“We could see further upside in Japan,” Timothy Radford, a strategist at Rivkin Securities in Sydney, said by phone. “A fresh mandate for Abe could help move his economic reform agenda forward. Chinese shares could also see a bit of upside once the Shanghai-Hong Kong trading link begins next week. This will open the floodgates for foreign investors to get more exposure to the mainland market.”
Japan’s TOPIX gained 0.8 percent, extending its highest closing level since June 2008 after the yen depreciated to a seven-year low. The measure advanced 2.7 percent this week.
A government report on Monday is expected to show that GDP expanded an annualized 2.2 percent for the third quarter after a 7.1 percent slide in the previous period, according to preliminary estimates from a Bloomberg News survey of economists.
In Taipei, shares edged up 0.2 percent on Friday, as bargain-hunting late in the session helped the broader market recoup earlier losses, dealers said. The index rose 0.8 percent this week to 8,982.88.
Buying in electronics stocks, such as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), and IC packaging and testing services supplier Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), pushed the indes back into positive territory, dealers said.
New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index added 0.4 percent on Friday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index, Singapore’s Straits Times Index and the Philippines’ PSEi Index each rose 0.3 percent, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index gained 0.2 percent.
On the other hand, South Korea’s KOSPI slipped 0.8 percent and the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.3 percent.
The Shanghai-Hong Kong exchange link will give foreign investors unprecedented access to China’s US$4.2 trillion stock market. The program will allow a net 23.5 billion yuan (US$3.8 billion) of daily cross-border purchases.
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