Asian stocks higher after Wall Street gains

Asian stocks were higher early Wednesday, boosted by a display of confidence on Wall Street.



Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 1.2 percent to 9,574.68 following the release of data showing the country’s industrial production climbed for the fourth straight month in February.



However, the government warned that Japanese industrial production would fall sharply in the coming months — a result of the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The disaster all but wiped out the country’s industrial northeast and caused dangerous radioactive leaks at a crippled nuclear power plant that authorities were still struggling to contain.



As investors waited for signs the nuclear crisis was stabilizing, they snapped up shares in export stocks helped by a weakening yen. Consumer electronics maker Sharp Corp. was up 3.6 percent, and — despite serious production disruptions — Toyota Motor Corp. rose 1.4 percent and Nissan Motor Corp. gained 1.9 percent.

A police officer stands guard outside the Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York. Sri Lankan-born billionaire hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam has pleaded not guilty in one of Wall Street’s biggest insider trading trials in years and says that the secret of his success was based on nothing more than research into publicly available information. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Spencer Platt)

Shares in Japanese companies expected to play a major role in rebuilding the country’s quake-shattered northeast also rose. Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Ltd. gained 2.5 percent, while Hitachi Construction Machinery Co. Ltd. jumped 2.8 percent.



Shares in Tokyo Electric Power Co. Inc., operator of the heavily damaged nuclear plant, continued their free fall, dropping a walloping 17.7 percent.



Elsewhere, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 1.2 percent to 23,335.71, and South Korea’s Kospi was up 0.7 percent to 2,087.45. Shares in Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, and New Zealand were also higher. Australia’s S&P ASX 200 rose 1 percent to 4,804.



Benchmark crude for May delivery was down 55 cents to $104.24 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract had gained 81 cents to settle at $104.79 per barrel on Tuesday as concerns about ongoing violence in the Middle East and North Africa sent oil prices slightly higher.



In New York on Tuesday, stocks finished broadly higher after consumer confidence fell less than some analysts had feared. All 10 company groups that make up the S&P 500 index rose by more than 0.3 percent.



The S&P 500 rose 9.25 points, or 0.7 percent, to 1,319.44. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 81.13 points, or 0.7 percent, to 12,279.01. The Nasdaq composite rose 26.21, or 1 percent, to 2,756.89.



Asian markets also shrugged off signs that Europe’s debt crisis was far from being resolved. On Tuesday, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Portugal’s sovereign debt rating to just one notch above junk, making it even less likely that the country will manage to avoid a bailout in coming months. The agency also cut Greece’s rating further into junk status.



The euro dropped to $1.4081 from $1.4088 late Tuesday. The dollar rose 82.85 yen from 82.43 late Tuesday in New York.

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Posted by VBN on Mar 30 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