Asian markets sharp falls except for Shanghai

Asian stock markets suffered sharp falls yesterday Monday Mar 7, with rising oil prices hurting overall sentiment and Tokyo hit by political upheaval, but mainland Chinese shares bucked the downward trend.



TOKYO’s Nikkei index plunged 1.76 percent, or 188.64 points, to end at 10,505.02, while SYDNEY’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.36 percent, or 66.4 points, to 4,797.90.



SEOUL slid 1.22 percent, or 24.41 points, to 1,980.27.



However SHANGHAI’s Composite Index surged 1.77 percent as fears of an imminent Chinese interest rate increased eased.



Oil prices pushed to 21/2-year highs late in the Asian day, as the conflict in Libya worsened and nervousness grew about the possibility of unrest in mammoth supplier Saudi Arabia.



Traders voiced growing concern at the situation.



“Oil prices need to stabilise while the global economy is still relatively firm, but time is running out,” Hideyuki Ishiguro, a strategist at Okasan Securities in Tokyo, told Dow Jones Newswires.



Oil-price rises pushed stocks in Chinese coal miners higher. However carriers such as Air New Zealand and Cathay Pacific saw their shares hit hard, as did auto stocks such as Japan’s Honda Motor.



“The biggest concern is that US consumption will be hurt by higher gasoline (petrol) prices,” said Yoshinori Nagano, senior strategist at Daiwa Asset Management.



Adding to pressure in Tokyo, Japan’s government was in crisis after foreign minister Seiji Maehara quit over a funding scandal.



HONG KONG: Shares fell 0.41 percent yesterday, weighed by global worries about rising oil prices, although gains on the mainland Chinese markets limited losses.

The benchmark Hang Seng Index dropped 95.67 points to 23,313.19.

“Investors this week will focus on oil price movement as well as on a series of China economic data, especially the consumer price index (for February) due Friday,” Ben Kwong, chief operating officer at KGI Asia, told Dow Jones Newswires.



SINGAPORE: Most Southeast Asian stock markets posted small gains yesterday as a surge in global oil prices spurred buying in energy and resource shares but investors were worried about rising costs in other sectors.

In Singapore, the Straits Times Index was flat, edging up 5.21 points to 3,066.52.

Oil services company Keppel Corp rose 0.17 percent to S$11.70 and SingTel rose 0.69 percent to Sg$2.93.



KUALA LAMPUR: Share prices on Bursa Malaysia consolidated recent gains yesterday. Declining counters outpaced advancing counters by 583 to 185.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (FBM KLCI) fell from its intra-day high of 1,521.34 to its intra-day low of 1,511.27 yesterday. It closed at 1,515.74, giving a day-on-day loss of 6.87 points, or 0.45 percent.



In other markets:



* Taipei fell 0.80 percent, or 70.61 points, to 8,713.79.



* Manila edged up 0.10 percent, or 3.77 points, to 3,886.48.



* Jakarta rose 0.54 percent, or 18.81 points, to 3,561.72.



* Bangkok rose 0.70 percent, or 7.03 points, to 1,002.94.



* Mumbai fell 1.43 percent, or 263.78 points, to 18,222.67, its second straight day of losses.



VIETNAM: The index of Hochiminh Stock Exchange (STC) bounced 8.99 points or 1.96 percent to 468.22 pts whereas the HNX Index slipped 0.28 points or 0.031 percent to end at 90.65 pts.

On the southern bourse, the total trading volume including matching order trade and negotiation transactions reached over 22.89 million shares valued at over 530.4 billion dong, falling 26.37 percent in volume and 25.42 percent in value from the previous trading session.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX), the total market trade reached over 37.22 million shares for over 465 billion dong, rising 50.73 percent in volume and 26.19 percent in value over the last trading session.



EUROPE: The euro rose but European stocks were mixed yesterday as dealers brushed aside a credit downgrade for Greece and mulled the outlook for the US economy as oil prices struck 21/2-year highs.



On the stock markets, London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.36 percent to 6,011.80 points while Frankfurt’s DAX 30 fell 0.15 percent to 7,168.36 points and in Paris the CAC 40 dropped 0.28 percent to 4,009.09 points.



Investors remained cautious on concerns that strong crude oil prices will hurt global economic recovery. There are worries that a prolonged period of high energy prices could erode company profits and add to inflationary pressures.



“The market is thinking forward as to what could cause a disruption to the economic recovery – be that from high commodity/oil prices as well as higher interest rates. Both of those things are clearly headwinds for the economy and the equity market,” said Don Fitzgerald, fund manager at Tocqueville Finance.



AMERICA: Stocks fell Monday as higher oil prices weighed on the market.



Oil hit a two-year high early in the day, nearing $107 a barrel, after forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi launched airstrikes against opposition fighters at an oil port. Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude gained $1.02 to settle at $105.44 per barrel.



The market has been shaken in recent weeks by the uprising in Libya and its effect on oil prices. A sustained rise in the price of oil could hurt the economic recovery by raising manufacturing and transportation costs.



Rising crude prices have pushed U.S. gasoline prices higher. Pump prices have jumped an average of 39 cents per gallon since the Libyan uprising began in mid-February, forcing motorists to pay an additional $146 million per day for the same amount of fuel.



The Dow Jones industrial average fell 79.85 points, or 0.7 percent, to close at 12,090.03.



The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 11.02 points, or 0.8 percent, to 1,310.13. The Nasdaq fell 39.04 points, or 1.4 percent, to 2,745.63



All three indexes have lost more than 1 percent so far this month.



The dollar rose, as did utility companies. The utility company index within the S&P 500 gained 0.4 percent even though the overall index declined. The CBOE Market Volatility Index jumped 8 percent to 20.66, a sign that investors expect stock trading to become more turbulent.



Starbucks rose 1.4 percent after CEO Howard Schultz told the Wall Street Journal the company is looking for companies to acquire. McDonald’s Corp rose 0.3 percent, the biggest gain among the 30 companies that make up the Dow average. Alcoa Inc. fell the most, 2 percent.



More than three stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated trading volume was 4.2 billion shares.

Benchmark Currency Rates

        USD     EUR     JPY     GBP     CHF     CAD     AUD     HKD

HKD     7.7876  10.8732 0.0946  12.6086 8.4031  7.9996  7.8816  -

AUD     0.9881  1.3796  0.0120  1.5997  1.0662  1.0150  -       0.1269

CAD     0.9735  1.3592  0.0118  1.5761  1.0504  -       0.9853  0.1250

CHF     0.9268  1.2940  0.0113  1.5005  -       0.9520  0.9379  0.1190

GBP     0.6176  0.8624  0.0075  -       0.6665  0.6345  0.6251  0.0793

JPY     82.3030 114.912 -       133.253 88.8072 84.5434 83.2964 10.5684

EUR     0.7162  -       0.0087  1.1596  0.7728  0.7357  0.7249  0.0920

USD     -       1.3962  0.0122  1.6191  1.0790  1.0272  1.0121  0.1284

                                                              Bloomberg

Tags: Vietnam business, Vietnam business news

Posted by venantiogrosjean on Mar 11 2011. Filed under Enterprises. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry