Asian stocks traded mixed Friday, with commodity stocks retreating in the wake of overnight falls in crude-oil prices, while investors chased up Hong Kong-listed stocks such as China Mobile and China Life Insurance Co., which are leveraged to the China growth story.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 6.73 points or 0.1% to 7,917.5 while the benchmark Hang Seng Index climbed 336.3 points or 2.5% to 13,846.1.
Stocks in Japan lost about 7% for the week, and are now down 48% on year-to-date basis. The Topix index of all the Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section issues fell 2.86 points or 0.4% to 786.0.
Major bank stocks closed weak, with Mizuho Financial Group plummeted 6.7% and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group losing 3.3%. Mitsubishi Financial UFJ Group plunged 5.4% after the bank said that it is planning to price a billion-share capital increase common stock offering early next week.
However, brokerages posted strong gains. Daiwa Securities Group surged 7.7% after Goldman Sachs raised its stock rating on the company to "Neutral" from "Sell." Top Nomura Holdings jumped 4.1%.
Komatsu, the world's second-biggest earth-moving equipment maker, fell 3.8% after the company said that it would suspend operations of power shovel plants at home and abroad for two to four days per month from December.
Toshiba rose 0.7% after the company said that it was looking at its operating schedule for the year-end and considering suspending some chip-making lines, but it denied a media report that the company would halt chip production at two plants for nine days due to weak demand.
Retailers were higher, with Fast Retailing rising 1.1%, Seven & I Holdings gaining 2.3% and KDDI Corp advancing 2.9%.
Among automakers, Honda Motor and Toyota Motor fell 1.9% each.
CHINA
The Chinese stock market closed higher for the third straight trading session amid hopes that a meeting of top economic planners early next week would produce more government action to aid the economy. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index opened lower after Wall Street fell overnight, but recovered to end up 17.15 points or 0.9% at 2,018.7. The Shenzhen Composite Index for China's smaller second exchange climbed 2.3% to close at 600.7.
Investors are hoping that a high-level government meeting next week produces more plans for economic stimulus following the November 9 announcement of a multibillion-dollar package of spending on construction and other projects.
Property developers rose after state media reported that regulators would soon begin trials of real estate investment trusts, with China Vanke gaining 5.5%. Among banks, China Construction Bank edged up 0.2%, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China gained 1.0%, and China Merchants Bank climbed 1.6%.
Elsewhere in the financial sector, CITIC Securities advanced 2.7% and Sinolink Securities added 1.4%, while Haitong Securities lost 0.5%. China Life Insurance climbed 0.9% and Ping An Insurance moved up 2.0%.
Market heavy weight PetroChina edged down 0.3%, while refiner Sinopec dropped 0.80%. Gansu Dunhuang Seed and Shandong Denghai Seeds both soared by the daily limit of 10%, while Beijing Shunxin Agriculture gained 5.0%.
Elsewhere:
South Korea's Kospi added 2.21% at 1,028.13.
Taiwan's Taiex closed down 0.7% at 4,225.
Singapore's STI closed up 0.9% at 1,659.
Indonesia's Jakarta Composite Index closed down 0.3% at 1,202.
Malaysia's KLCI closed down 8.6 points at 838.
India's Sensex ended down 2.9% at 8,964.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 closed 1.2% lower at 3,489.90.
New Zealand's NZSX-50 eased 0.9% to 1,206.72.
with files from other wire services
