Asian markets advanced Wednesday after the U.S. Federal Reserve's steep interest rate cut, though they ended well below the day's peak amid worries about a bleak global economic outlook and concern over corporate earnings.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average gained 44.5 points or 0.5% to close at 8,612.5 while the benchmark Hang Seng Index rising 330.3 points or 2.2% to close at 15,460.5.
Tokyo stocks staged a strong rally in early trading, tracking the surge in U.S. stocks Tuesday on the back of a bigger-than-expected U.S. rate cut, but ran out of steam and weakened in afternoon trading as the dollar fell to the lower 88-yen level at one point. The Fed slashed its target for the federal funds rate for overnight bank loans to zero to 0.25% from 1% to combat a prolonged recession.
On the economic front, Japan's Cabinet office said in a final report that the leading index declined to 85.2 in October from 89.2 in September. The October reading was revised up from 85.0. A year ago, the leading index was at 96.2. At the same time, the coincident index logged a reading of 97.7, down from 100.1 in September. It was revised up from 97.6 reported initially. The lagging index fell to 98.2 from 97.9 seen in September.
Among property developers, Mitsubishi Estate soared 10.0% and Mitsui Fudosan gained 4.0%. In the insurance sector, Tokio Marine Holdings jumped 7.1% and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group Holdings climbed 3.7%. Sumitomo Metal Mining lost 1.3%.
Exporters were mixed after the dollar fell against the yen. Honda Motor plunged 5.5%, Nissan Motor plummeted 4.1%, Komatsu dropped 0.4%, and Panasonic Corp slipped 0.1%, while Canon rose 1.7%. Toyota Motor and Sony closed unchanged.
Among high-tech stocks, Kyocera shed 4.4%, TDK Corp declined 0.7% and Advantest gave away 2.2%. In the banking space, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group gained 2.2%, Mizuho Financial Group advanced 3.2%, and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group rose 4.4%.
Oil and gas miner Inpex Holdings advanced 1.4%, but Nippon Mining Holding declined 0.8%. Among other commodity-related stocks, Mitsubishi Corp. closed unchanged, while Mitsui & Co. edged up 0.2%.
CHINA
The Chinese stock market finished only slightly higher, extending its gains for the third day in a row, despite a record U.S. interest rate cut. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, which covers both A shares and B shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, rose 1.8 points or 0.1% to 1976.8, while the Shenzhen Component Index on the smaller Shenzhen Stock Exchange rose 36.6 points or 0.5% to 7286.8.
Gainers in the Shanghai market outnumbered decliners by 581 to 209, while 63 were unchanged. Aggregated turnover on the two bourses was 104.7 billion yuan.
Index heavyweight PetroChina lost 0.9% and oil refiner Sinopec declined 0.4%. In the financial sector, China Life Insurance slipped 0.1%, while Ping An Insurance advanced 1.0%. China Merchants Bank fell 0.5% and Bank of China shed 0.3%. Brokerage CITIC Securities gave away 0.7%, Haitong Securities plunged 3.5%, and Sinolink Securities sipped 1.6%.
Among property developers, China Vanke closed unchanged, Gemdale added 0.6%, and COFCO Property declined 0.6%. Poly Real Estate Group slipped 0.1% on profit taking following Tuesday's 7.35 surge. Poly Real Estate Group reported that its sales jumped 21.0% for the period January to November.
Elsewhere:
South Korea's Kospi jumped 3% and then dropped 1.4% before ending 0.7% higher at 1,169.75 in choppy trading.
Taiwan's Taiex ended up 0.7% at 4,648.
Indonesia's Jakarta Composite Index gained 1.6% to 1,363.
Malaysia's KLCI closed up 7.7 points at 862.
Singapore's STI closed down 0.2% at 1,779.
New Zealand's NZX 50 index was little changed at 2,695.93.
The S&P/ASX 200 index gained 0.4% at 3,570.60.
with files from other wire services
