Stocks Surge Across Asia – US-FOREX.US
HONG KONG -
Merger news in Japan and a weaker yen boosted the Nikkei benchmark to gain the most in more than a month. Seoul shares also climbed over 2% after the government said the South Korean economy would not shrink as much as its initially forecast. South Korean Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said on Thursday that there were signs of improvement in Asia’s fourth largest economy. The Seoul government now predicts the South Korean economy will contract 1.5% this year, better than the previous projection of a 2% decline.The revision reflected that massive government stimulus measures were taking into effect. The government estimated the economy will improve further in 2010, with a 4% growth in GDP. Seoul’s Kospi Index closed up 2.1% to 1,392.73. In Tokyo, Japanese manufacturers climbed on a weaker yen, which traded against the U.S. greenback at 96.41 in Asia on Thursday, down from 95.66. The dollar rose after the U.S. central bank decided to hold its benchmark overnight rates in a range between zero to 0.25%. The dollar rose for the second day after the Open Market Committee of the Fed said Wednesday that it would not increase its purchase of bonds in an attempt to further prop up the U.S. economy.Japanese exporters rose on the depreciated yen, boosting the Nikkei 225 Index up 2.2% to close Thursday at 9,796.08. Honda Motor
and Toyota Motor
added 2.3% and 3.9%, respectively, even though both automakers reported poor sales performance in May.
Honda Motor announced Thursday that its exports fell for the eight straight month in May, plummeting 65.2% on a yearly basis to 18,156 units. Domestic sales also declined over 6% to 37,525 units. Likewise, Toyota Motor announced on the same day that its export sales toppled 51.3% to 100,117 units in May, while sales at home lost 23.1% to 82,394 units, both making for the 10th consecutive decline.
Mitsubishi Electric Corp
rocketed 7.7% to 613 yen after Nikkei reported the company planned to build factories in the U.S. and in Europe next year to produce solar power generation systems using solar cells shipped from Japan. The new plant in Europe would quickly boost the annual production capacity of Mitsubishi Electric Corp to 100,000 kilowatts, the newspaper added. Aozora Bank rose 10.8% to 154 yen after the ailing bank said it was in talks with another money-losing lender Shinsei Bank for a possible merger next year. Shinsei shares jumped 11.0% to 161 yen . Hong Kong shares opened up 1.4% on Thursday, and the Hang Seng Index traded 2.1% higher at 18,275.03.China’s second largest oil company China Petroleum & Chemical Corp
, commonly known as Sinopec, rose 0.4% to 5.61 Hong Kong dollars after it agreed to pay 7.2 billion in cash to buy the Toronto and London listed Addax Petroleum Corp in a deal to obtain huge oil reserves in Iraq’s Kurdistan and West Africa. Australia’s S&P/ASX200 rose 1.3% to 3,856.00 after the International Monetary Fund has revised its Australia’s economic growth forecasts to negative 0.5% this year, up from its initial estimate of negative 1.4%.
Thomson Financial contributed to this article.