Most Asian stocks advanced Wednesday on lower crude-oil prices and overnight Wall Street gains, with shares in Tokyo looking past a major earthquake off Japan’s northern coast and cheering upbeat machinery-orders data.
The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo rallied 64.31 points, or 0.6%, to 10,589.50
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained another 98.41 points, or 0.4 %, to 23,810.10.
Airline stocks advanced on a pullback in crude-oil prices, with Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. soaring on the Hong Kong carrier’s 2010 results. Australian shares ended lower as weak commodity prices weighed down miners.
Tokyo stocks rose as investors shrugged off a 7.3-magnitude earthquake in Japan, as initial reports suggested that there was little damage to the rural, quake-prepared region.
Better-than-expected data also helped, with automation company Fanuc rising 0.6% as January core machinery orders rose 4.2% month-on-month, outpacing December’s 1.7% rise.
Shares of Vantec Corp. soared 25.8% on a Nikkei report that Hitachi Transport plans to buy a majority stake in the company.
Telecommunications major KDDI Corp. added 3% after announcing a capital and business tie-up with Space Shower Networks to expand its media-content business.
Toyota Motor Corp. ended 0.4% higher, with investors focused on the company’s "global vision," a longer-term business strategy that the auto maker planned to unveil Wednesday. According to a Nikkei report, Toyota aims to lift its group operating profit to more than one trillion yen ($12.2 billion U.S.) in two to three years by strengthening its ability to cope with a stronger yen and through additional cost-cutting efforts.
A number of airlines gained as April Nymex light sweet crude-oil futures fell 81 cents at
$104.21 U.S. a barrel on Globex, extending Tuesday’s losses following reports that allies of Col. Moammar Gadhafi were debating the Libyan leader’s exit. The prospect of Western military intervention in the North African country and the possibility that the U.S. could tap strategic supplies also pressured crude oil.
Korean Air Lines rose 1% and Asiana Airlines Inc. rose 1.5% in Seoul, All Nippon Airways Co. rose 0.7% in Tokyo, EVA Airways jumped 5.9% in Taipei and Qantas Airways added 0.4% in Sydney.
Shares of Cathay Pacific soared 4.5% after the Hong Kong carrier said its 2010 profit nearly tripled and boosted its dividend payout.
In Seoul, foreign investors’ sales capped the Kospi’s rise, with Hynix Semiconductor Inc. losing 0.9% and Korea Kumho PetroChemical Co. dropping 3.6%.
In Sydney, BHP Billiton Ltd. dropped 1.3% and Rio Tinto lost 1.8%, hit by lower prices for base metals.
Oz Minerals shed 2.2% on news it was buying the Carrapateena copper-gold project in South Australia.
Bucking the market, Mongolian coal miner Hunnu Coal Ltd. soared 11.3% after Thailand’s Banpu PCL acquired a 12.4% stake in the company for 45 million Australian dollars ($45.45 million U.S.).
In foreign-exchange markets, the U.S. dollar was at 82.80 yen from ¥82.67 in late New York trade Tuesday, while the euro was at $1.3873 from $1.3905, and at ¥114.86 from ¥114.96.
CHINA
Chinese banks advanced on optimism over their upcoming 2010 earnings reports, with the stocks also aided by media reports that the People’s Bank of China had reversed a punitive increase in reserve requirements it had imposed on some lenders.
The Shanghai CSI 300 Index crept forward 1.40 points to 3,338.86
Shares of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China added 1.5% and Bank of China rose 1% in Hong Kong; in Shanghai, the stocks outperformed the broad market, rising 0.2% and 2.1%, respectively.
Gains in Shanghai were capped by coal miners and gold firms, which fell in line with a retreat in commodity prices Tuesday. China Coal Energy fell 0.9%, while Shandong Gold-Mining dropped 1.4%.
In other markets;
Taiwan’s Taiex Index inched ahead 2.27 points to 8,750.02
Korea’s Kospi Index added 5.15 points, or 0.3%, to 2,001.47
Singapore’s Straits Times Index skidded 10.94 points, or 0.4%, to 3,092.90
New Zealand’s NZX 50 stumbled 6.75 points, or 0.2%, to 3,414.42
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 40.40 points, or 0.8%, to 4,767.80
