Asian stocks climbed for a sixth week, the longest streak of gains in more than two years, on increasing confidence the worst of the global recession is over.
China Cosco Holdings Co, the world’s largest operator of dry-bulk ships, surged 21 percent on rising Chinese exports and shipping rates. PT Bumi Resources, Asia’s largest exporter of power-station coal, jumped 21 percent in Jakarta as elections strengthened the hold Indonesia’s president has over parliament. JFE Holdings Inc, Japan’s No. 2 steelmaker, soared 22 percent on speculation it won’t make large price cuts and as the government unveiled a record stimulus package.
“We’re probably seeing a bottoming out in the economy,” said Arjuna Mahendran, Singapore-based chief investment strategist for Asia at HSBC Private Bank, which oversees US$494 billion in assets. “The second quarter will be good for stocks as corporate earnings should bounce.”
The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index rose 2 percent this week to 89.69, completing the longest stretch of gains since December 2006. Asian markets have rallied 27 percent since the MSCI benchmark dropped to a six-year low on March 9.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 0.6 percent. South Korea’s KOSPI index dropped 0.5 percent as brokerages cut recommendations on financial companies. Thailand’s SET Index gained 0.6 percent in a week shortened by new year holidays. The Thai government called a state of emergency following clashes between security forces and protesters in Bangkok.
MSCI’s Asian index plunged by a record 43 percent last year as the credit crunch tipped the world’s largest economies into recession, forcing companies to cut jobs amid slumping profits.
The gauge has rallied 27 percent from a five-year low reached on March 9 amid signs government measures to ease the financial crisis are working. Earnings estimates for companies included in the MSCI benchmark started to rise this month after a year of falling predictions, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
China’s exports rose 39 percent last month from a month earlier, the customs bureau said on April 10, when Hong Kong markets were shut for a holiday. The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of shipping costs for commodities, jumped 13.8 percent this week. The gauge had slumped as much as 94 percent from a peak in May last year.
China posted a 6.1 percent annualized growth rate for the first quarter, the slowest rate of expansion in nearly a decade. That may mark the bottom for the world’s third-largest economy as a 4 trillion yuan (US$585 billion) stimulus package cushions the effects of the global recession.
Taiwanese share prices are expected to fall further in the week ahead following steep losses on Friday, with the market having failed to push above the key 6,000 point mark this week, dealers said.
Friday’s decline prompted many investors to be wary of stiff technical resistance ahead of 6,000 points, with the market having gained more than 30 percent since the beginning of last month, they said. Analysts said market sentiment toward the bellwether electronic sector is likely to turn cautious as high-tech heavyweights start to release their first quarter results next week.
However, companies with close business ties to China may attract interest, as they are expected to outperform the broader market, they added.
In the week to Friday, the TAIEX fell 26.58 points, or 0.50 percent, to 5,755.38 after a 4.56 percent increase a week earlier. Average daily turnover stood at NT$168.57 billion (US$4.99 billion), compared with NT$144.05 billion a week ago.
Other markets on Friday:
JAKARTA: Up 0.6 percent. The Jakarta Composite index rose 9.7 points to 1,634.79. The index has risen 24.59 percent over the past month.
MANILA: Up 1.42 percent. The composite index rose 29.47 points to 2,094.13. “Expectations of bad financial figures aren’t coming through,” Eagle Equities president Joseph Roxas said.
WELLINGTON: Up 1.81 percent. The NZX-50 gained 48.13 points to 2,711.29. The focus was on leading stocks and signs of fresh money entering the market, dealers said.
MUMBAI: Up 0.69 percent. The 30-share SENSEX rose 75.69 points to 11,023.09. Stocks shed most intraday gains as investors chose to unwind positions ahead of the weekend, dealers said.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has