Tokyo shares jump in half-day session on first trading day of 2009
Asian markets shot higher Monday, with Japanese stocks in the lead during a half-day session, as exporters rallied such as Toyota Motor Corp. rallied on the back of gains on Wall Street and hopes for strong action by the incoming U.S. government.
"The Obama package is probably the only positive for the markets at the moment ... commodity prices in general have also been recovering over the last couple of weeks, again on Obama policy expectations," said Yoji Takeda, head of regional equities at RBC Investment.
Takeda was referring to expectations about a stimulus package from U.S. President-elect Barack Obama after he takes office later this month.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Obama and congressional Democrats were crafting a plan to offer as much as $300 billion of tax cuts to individuals and businesses, a move aimed at attracting Republican support for their stimulus package.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 Average jumped 2.1% to end at 9,043.12 as trading resumed for the first time in 2009, while the broader Topix Index gained 2.2% to 877.95.
The markets were open only for a half-day session on the first business day of the year.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index ended the morning trading session 1.3% up at 15,2230.87 and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, or the H-share Index, gained 1.9% to 8,475.51.
China's Shanghai Composite added 2.1% to 1,859.85, after declining in the previous eight sessions.
Singapore's Straits Times Index rose 1.6% to 1,858.25, Taiwan's Taiex added 2.3% to 4,697.35, South Korea's Kospi climbed 1.1% to 1,170.46 and New Zealand's NZX 50 Index rose 1.1% to 2,744.89.
India's Sensitive Index, or Sensex, gained 1.7% to 10,124.65 in early trading to reclaim the psychologically-crucial 10,000-point level for the first time since Dec. 22.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index declined 0.9% to 3,680.70 in afternoon trading, giving up early gains, although mining majors BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto rose sharply.
"The only thing I can put down [the reversal in market direction] to is a bit of profit-taking after the market rallied pretty well since Christmas," said Michael Heffernan, a senior client adviser at Austock Stockbroking in Melbourne.
"I think economic data is going to be yawned at by the market, because frankly no one expects anything to be good. But if it is, then that's going to be even more positive for the market," said Heffernan. "I think the outlook for market is excellent."
Regional detail
Exporters were the big gainers in Tokyo, with Toyota rising 3.6%, Nintendo Co. jumping 5.5%, and Canon adding 2.2%.
Shares of Suzuki Motor Corp. rose 3.7% after the Nikkei business daily reported the small car specialist was shelving plans to open factories in Thailand and Russia, as well as plans to develop a larger automobile for the global market.
In Asian currency trading, the U.S. dollar bought 92.02 yen, compared with 90.98 yen on Friday.
Shares of pharmaceutical major Daiichi Sankyo Co. ended unchanged in the buoyant market, shrugging off another Nikkei report the company was expected to book losses of more than 300 billion yen ($3.3 billion) for the April-December period because of the declining stock price of Ranbaxy Laboratories, the Indian generic drugmaker it acquired in November.
Shares of All Nippon Airways slipped 0.9% on reports citing a Yomiuri newspaper report that the airline will scrap plans to buy Airbus' A380 jumbo aircraft, as both All Nippon and bigger rival Japan Airlines Corp. plan to slash spending. JAL stock added 0.5%.
Among banks, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group advanced 4% and Mizuho Financial Group surged 13.3% in the buoyant market, ignoring wire reports citing the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper that the lenders were likely to have posted a loss in the last quarter of 2008.
Resource stocks rallied after February crude-oil futures gained as much as 79 cents to $47.13 a barrel in electronic trading, after climbing $1.74 to close at $46.34 a barrel Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. See full story.
BHP Billiton advanced 2.8% and Rio Tinto spiked 7.9% in Sydney. Elsewhere, Inpex Corp. added 3.3% in Tokyo, Cnooc soared 4.7% in Hong Kong and Oil & Natural Gas Corp. rose 1% in Mumbai.
In other news, Israeli tanks and troops appeared to have pushed deep into northern Gaza by Sunday afternoon after pouring into the territory Saturday night as the Jewish state launched a ground assault against the militant group Hamas. The land attack marked an escalation of an Israeli offensive that Palestinian hospital officials said had left as many as 470 Gazans dead since it began on Dec. 27.
Still, the tensions were "not enough" to boost crude prices over $50 a barrel, said Koichi Murakami, an analyst with Daiichi Shohin; "real demand remains weak. Unless the Gaza conflict leads to some real supply disruptions in the Middle East," the gains will soon run out of steam, they said.
Friday on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 2.95 to 9,034.69 and the S&P 500 Index soared 3.2% to 931.80, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 3.5% to 1,632.21.
