Asian stocks rose this week after Chinese shares rallied amid signs that the world’s second-largest economy is stabilizing and as companies from Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) to Tata Steel Ltd posted profit that exceeded estimates.
China Shenhua Energy Co (神華能源), China’s No. 1 coal producer, advanced 6.4 percent in Hong Kong after domestic industrial electricity demand increased last month. Lenovo, the world’s biggest maker of personal computers, gained 4.4 percent, while Tata Steel, India’s biggest producer of the metal, jumped 7.6 percent.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.3 percent this week, as the Shanghai Composite Index climbed 0.8 percent and the Hang Seng Index led developed market gains after reports on industrial production and exports this month added to signs that China’s economy is improving.
The TAIEX rose 0.9 percent this week, ending at 7,925 from 7,856.14 on Aug. 9. On Friday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) gained 0.76 percent to NT$79.10, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was 0.52 percent higher at NT$96.50.
China Everbright Securities Co (中國光大證券) on Friday said it was investigating a trading error after the Shanghai Composite Index posted its biggest intraday surge since March 2009, briefly swinging from a loss to a gain of as much as 5.6 percent.
The Shanghai Composite Index was valued at 9.1 times estimated earnings as of Friday, compared with multiples of 13.04 for the MSCI Asia Pacific Index and 15.02 times for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, according to figures compiled by Bloomberg.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed 4 percent. The trading week in the territory was shortened as the market was shut on Wednesday due to a typhoon. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index jumped 6.5 percent.
Japan’s TOPIX gained 0.2 percent, while the Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 0.3 percent. The Japanese economy expanded an annualized 2.6 percent in the second quarter, slowing from a revised 3.8 percent in the previous three months.
“Next year, there is a chance that Japan goes into a recession and the financial markets usually see that half-a-year in advance. I would expect the stock market to be peaking now,” Japan Macro Advisors chief economist Takuji Okubo said on Bloomberg television.
The TOPIX has gained 33 percent this year — the world’s best-performing developed equity market.
South Korea’s KOSPI gained 2.1 percent, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index increased 1.2 percent.
New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index lost 0.4 percent and trading was temporarily halted on Friday after a magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck.
About 50 percent of the companies on the MSCI Asia Pacific Index that reported quarterly earnings since July 1 and for which estimates are available have exceeded expectations, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Energy firms posted the biggest advance among the index’s 10 industry groups this week.
In other markets on Friday:
Manila closed 0.83 percent, or 54.76 points, lower from Thursday to finish at 6,525.95.
Wellington fell 0.36 percent, or 16.39 points, to 4,513.88.
Mumbai dropped 3.97 percent, or 769.41 points, to 18,598.18.
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,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
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