Asian stocks advanced for the seventh time in eight weeks, sending a regional index to the highest level in four months, as production and earnings figures lifted confidence that the region’s economies have started to recover.
Canon Inc, the world’s largest seller of digital cameras, gained 8.1 percent after cost cuts helped the company boost its profit forecast and Japan’s production levels increased for the first time in six months. Li & Fung Ltd (利豐), the biggest supplier of toys and clothes to Wal-Mart Stores Inc, added 10 percent ahead of a report that Chinese manufacturing increased for a fifth month. Lion Nathan Ltd soared 41 percent after receiving a takeover offer.
The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index added 1.6 percent this week to 90.91, a level not seen since Jan. 7. Asian markets have rallied 29 percent since the MSCI benchmark dropped to an almost six-year low on March 9.
“All the things are in place for the bear market to have ended,” Anthony Bolton, London-based president of investments at Fidelity International, which oversees US$157.3 billion, told Bloomberg Television in Hong Kong. “We’re going to see a slow economic upturn, but that’s enough for the stock market. If you wait for things to get better, you’ll miss the rally.”
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average surged 3.1 percent to 8,977.37. Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite Index posted the region’s largest gain with an 8.3 percent advance after companies including PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia, the country’s No. 2 financial services provider, reported rising profits.
Markets shrugged off the outbreak of swine flu, and the bankruptcy of Chrysler LLC on Thursday also failed to derail market gains.
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 idle factories and lay off workers.
Taiwan’s TAIEX index posted its steepest gain since 1991 on Thursday as the government allowed Chinese investments for the first time since a civil war ended six decades ago.
In the week to Thursday, the weighted index rose 111.80 points, or 1.90 percent, to 5,992.57 as Thursday’s rally made up losses earlier in the week on swine flu fears.
Average daily turnover stood at NT$128.28 billion (US$3.86 billion), compared with NT$130.81 billion a week earlier.
The market was closed on Friday for the Labor Day holiday.
Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), Taiwan’s third-largest phone company, surged by 7.6 percent to NT$37.65 after China Mobile Ltd (中國移動) offered to buy a 12 percent stake for NT$17.77 billion (US$529 million).
Taiwanese share prices are expected to extend their gains next week on hopes over improving relations with China, dealers said on Thursday.
Buying next week may focus on large-cap electronic and financial stocks to help push the market past the psychological 6,000-point level and challenge 6,200 points, dealers said.
However, profit taking may emerge in the second half of the week as an outbreak of swine flu remains a concern to the already weak global economy, they said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)