Asian stocks fluctuated this week as Japanese and Australian benchmark indices rose after reports showed better-than-estimated economic growth or employment, while China-related companies fell on concern policy makers will raise interest rates to slow inflation.
“Markets tend to go hot and cold on expectations that Chinese authorities will take more steps in their tightening campaign,” said Nader Naeimi, a Sydney-based strategist at AMP Capital Investors Ltd, which manages about US$93 billion and is a unit of AMP Ltd, Australia’s second-largest asset manager. “There is pressure on interest rates in China, but I don’t think there’s any reason they would want to crush growth.”
The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index fell 0.3 percent to 133.09 this week, holding near a one-month high. It jumped 3.5 percent last week after three straight weekly drops in which it lost 4.4 percent. The index has rallied about 22 percent from this year’s low on May 25.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 0.3 percent this week. GDP grew at an annualized 4.5 percent rate in the three months ended Sept. 30, faster than the 3.9 percent reported last month, the Cabinet Office said on Thursday. The median forecast of 19 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a 4.1 percent expansion.
“Investors already knew that higher capital spending in the July-September period would boost Japan’s GDP, but they took it as a good direction once the result was disclosed,” said Masaru Hamasaki, who helps oversee about US$17 billion as chief strategist at Toyota Asset Management Co in Tokyo.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index retreated 0.7 percent this week, China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell less than 0.1 percent and South Korea’s KOSPI rose 1.5 percent.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index climbed 0.9 percent.
Chinese developers and banks declined this week after the statistics bureau brought forward the release of economic data, including inflation, by two days to Friday. The move signals an interest-rate increase may be imminent, said Glenn Maguire, chief economist for Asia at Paris-based Societe Generale SA.
Taiwan’s TAIEX rose 1.1 percent for the week after closing down 0.39 percent on Friday, dragged down by construction shares on fears that the government would impose a new tax to curb speculation in the property market, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 35.01 points on Friday to close at 8,718.83, on turnover of NT$143.34 billion (US$4.75 billion).
In other markets on Friday:
Manila fell 1.75 percent, or 73.67 points, from Thursday to 4,135.75.
Wellington closed 0.23 percent, or 7.64 points, lower from Thursday at 3,272.92.
Mumbai jumped 1.39 percent, or 266.53 points, from Thursday to 19,508.89, buoyed by a better-than-expected production data.
India’s industrial output accelerated at its fastest rate in three months in October to 10.8 percent, data showed on Friday, spurred by robust manufacturing as demand rose during the religious festival season.
Banking and telecoms stocks which lagged in previous days, rose.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
RSS