Asian marts mostly up on bargain hunting

Asian shares mostly gained yesterday Thursday Mar 24 on bargain hunting but Tokyo slipped amid uncertainty over contaminated food and water and the ongoing struggle to avoid a meltdown at a stricken nuclear plant.



JAPAN’s Nikkei began the day on a high as traders picked up cheap stocks after Wednesday’s late fall caused by news that authorities in the capital had found dangerously high levels of radioactive iodine in tap water.



However, the index fell back to end the day 0.15 percent, or 14.46 points, lower at 9,435 on reports of more smoke rising from the Fukushima No.1 plant, which was hammered by the deadly March 11 quake and tsunami.



Regional markets were broadly higher following last week’s heavy sell-off.



SYDNEY added 1.01 percent, or 47.2 points, to close at 4,699.6 and SEOUL gained 1.22 percent, or 24.60 points, to 2,036.78.



INDIAN shares rose 0.79 percent, its third straight day of gains.



SHANGHAI was flat, edging down 1.77 points to 2,946.71.



On the Nikkei exporters continue to be hurt as they are forced to keep plants closed, halting production and adding to growing concerns about the economic cost of the double tragedy and nuclear crisis.



TOKYO fell 2.72 percent to 3,215 yen on news it expects to be forced to halt some production at its North American plants due to supply line problems.



Nissan closed down 4.55 percent to 671 yen and Sony fell 1.77 percent to 2,550.



HONG KONG: Shares gained 0.39 percent yesterday as dealers cautiously bought back into the market after last week’s sell-off on the back of the Japanese quake and tsunami.

The benchmark index added 89.88 points to close at 22,915.28 on turnover of HK$76.14 billion.

The market has risen for four out of the past five sessions and is now 1.4 percent below its close before the March 11 quake and tsunami in Japan that sent global stocks plummeting.



SINGAPORE: The Straits Times Index gained 0.7 percent to 3,043.03 as of the close of trade yesterday.

Shares on the measure trade at an average 14 times estimated earnings, compared with about 15.6 times at the end of 2010.

These shares were among the most active in the market: Noble Group rose 1.9 percent to S$2.15, Olam International climbed 2.9 percent to S$2.84 while Ausgroup Ltd fell 1.5 percent to 33.5 Singapore cents.



KUALA LAMPUR: Share prices on Bursa Malaysia staged a mild follow-through rebound yesterday. Advancing counters outpaced declining counters by 444 to 299.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (FBM KLCI) rebounded from its intra-day low of 1,510 to its intra-day high of 1,514.91 yesterday. It closed at 1,513.84 points, giving a day-on-day gain of 1.87 points, or 0.12 percent.



In other markets:



* Wellington rose 0.34 percent, or 11.46 points, to end at 3,387.25.



* Taipei gained 0.37 percent, or 31.32 points, to 8,576.40. Hon Hai was up 1.46 percent at TW$104.5 while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co added 1.02 percent at TW$69.4.



* Manila closed 0.36 percent, or 13.98 points, lower at 3,841.54. Semirara Mining fell 4.7 percent 216.20 pesos, International Container Terminal was unchanged at 41 pesos and Digital Telecommunications was off 2.4 percent at 1.62.



VIETNAM: The VN Index returned to fall 6.32 points or 1.35 percent to close at 461.32 pts and the HNX Index also slipped 0.83 points or 0.88 percent to 93.28 pts.



EUROPE: The euro rose against the dollar and European stocks advanced yesterday, ahead of an EU summit set to focus on the eurozone debt crisis amid mounting fears that Portugal will soon request a huge bailout.



By 0957 GMT, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares was up 0.2 percent at 1,115.06 points, though volumes were low at just 27 percent of its 90-day average.



Meanwhile, the euro rose to US$1.4128 from US$1.4083 late in New York on Wednesday, a day after Portugal’s parliament rejected a new austerity plan in a vote that prompted the resignation of Prime Minister Jose Socrates.



In stock market trade, the British capital’s benchmark FTSE 100 index rose 0.85 percent to 5,844.84 points, Frankfurt’s DAX 30 climbed 0.73 percent to 6,854.39 points and in Paris the CAC 40 grew 0.31 percent to 3,925.98.



AMERICA: Stronger corporate earnings and signs of a stronger job market lifted stocks Thursday.



The Dow Jones industrial average rose 84.54 points, or 0.7 percent, to close at 12,170.56. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 12.12, or 0.9 percent, to 1,309.66. The Nasdaq composite index rose 38.12 points, or 1.4 percent, to 2,736.42.



Investors turned their attention away from a long list of recent worries including high oil prices, violence in Libya and Japan’s nuclear crisis. Portugal also looked closer to needing bailout funds from the European Union. Portugal’s government resigned late Wednesday after lawmakers rejected a plan to cut the country’s debts. European leaders are meeting to discuss the region’s debt problems.



All three major indexes have gained more than 2 percent this week as Japan appeared to make progress on getting a leaking nuclear plant under control.



Among active stocks, Red Hat Inc. jumped 18 percent to $47.26, and Micron Technology Inc. rose 8 percent to $11.50 on their earnings results. ConAgra Foods Inc. rose 2 percent to $23.40.



Scholastic Corp., a publisher of children’s books, fell 11 percent to $27.74. Weaker sales pushed it to a wider loss last quarter. The company also cut its forecast for full-year earnings, citing tighter budgets for schools.



Research in Motion Ltd., the maker of BlackBerry mobile devices, sank 10 percent in after-hours trading after issuing a forecast for earnings in the current quarter that was well below what analysts were expecting.



Two shares rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated trading volume was 3.9 billion shares.

Benchmark Currency Rates

        USD     EUR     JPY     GBP     CHF     CAD     AUD     HKD

HKD     7.7950  11.0503 0.0963  12.5611 8.5838  7.9811  7.9529  -

AUD     0.9802  1.3895  0.0121  1.5794  1.0793  1.0036  -       0.1257

CAD     0.9767  1.3846  0.0121  1.5739  1.0755  -       0.9965  0.1253

CHF     0.9081  1.2873  0.0112  1.4634  -       0.9298  0.9265  0.1165

GBP     0.6206  0.8797  0.0077  -       0.6834  0.6354  0.6331  0.0796

JPY     80.9660 114.778 -       130.471 89.1588 82.8992 82.6056 10.3869

EUR     0.7054  -       0.0087  1.1367  0.7768  0.7223  0.7197  0.0905

USD     -       1.4176  0.0124  1.6114  1.1012  1.0239  1.0203  0.1283

                                                              Bloomberg

Tags: Vietnam business news, vietnam enterprices

Posted by VBN on Mar 25 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