Asian markets shot higher Monday, with Japanese stocks in the lead, as exporters 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.
In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 Index advanced 183.56 points, or 2.07%, to close at 9,043.12 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index surged 521 points or 3.46% to close at 15,563.
On the economic front, the Automobile Dealers Association said Monday that vehicle sales in Japan dropped 22.3% year-on-year in December after falling 27.3% in November. Total sales in December were 183,549. Vehicle sales fell for the fifth straight month.
The Japan Mini Vehicle Association reported that sales of mini vehicles dropped 6.7% year-on-year in December and totaled 122,770 units. This was the second straight month of decline. For the full year 2008, mini vehicle sales were down 2.6% at 1.87 million units. Sales declined for the second year in a row.
In the banking space, Mitsubishi UFJ gained 4.01%, while Mizuho Financial climbed 15.64% after it resumed trading following a year-end suspension due to the transition to the paperless stock system. The Tokyo Stock Exchange had suspended trading in eighteen stocks between December 25 and December 30 for companies that planned to adopt a unit share system in January. Also, Resona Holdings jumped 7.38% and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial rose 11.44%.
Automaker Toyota gained 5.43%, Honda advanced 2.73%, Mazda jumped 6.04% and Nissan 4.06%. Among export-oriented stocks, Canon rose 2.17%, Komatsu jumped 6.89%, Nikon gained 4.63%, Sharp climbed 9.59% and Sony advanced 2.50%. In the tech space, Advantest jumped 5.31%, Fanuc climbed 7.63% and Kyocera rose 3.69%.
Among oil stocks, Inpex Holdings rose 3.30%, while Nippon Oil eased 0.89% and Showa Shell declined 0.57%. Trading house Mitsubishi climbed 9.21%, Itochu surged 5.64% and Marubeni gained 4.76%.
Daiichi Sankyo closed unchanged despite a report in the Nikkei business daily that the company is likely to book losses of more than 300 billion yen for the April-December period due to the plunging stock price of Indian subsidiary Ranbaxy Laboratories.
Elsewhere:
China's Shanghai Composite Index advanced 60 points or 3.29% to close at 1,881.
Singapore's Straits Times Index rose 95 points or 5.20% to settle at 1,925.
Taiwan's Taiex ended 2.3% higher at 4,698.31.
South Korea's Kospi climbed 1.4% to 1,173.57.
New Zealand's NZX 50 Index rose 1.1% to 2,744.89.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index declined 0.7% to end at 3,687.
with files from other wire services
