Japan Declines on Rate Worries, HK Zooms

Yordanka
16 Nov, 2006
New York City

Japanese stocks closed lower Thursday, swinging from earlier gains on concerns over the timing of future interest-rate hikes, while the leading share index in Hong Kong rose to a record close for the second straight time. Elsewhere around the region, markets closed mixed. Australian leading index fell on weakness in mining shares, while Singapore finished at another record.

[R]7:30AM Asian stocks finish mixed Thursday, Japan slips, HK surges.[/R]
Asian markets finished mixed on Thursday. The Nikkei 225 Average in Japan ended the session 0.5% lower at 16,163.87. Canon rose 0.2%, while consumer-electronics and entertainment conglomerate Sony retreated from earlier gains to end even on the day. Nintendo shed 2.6% after touching an all-time high in intraday trading.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group saw its shares decline 2.7%. Business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Thursday that the biggest bank by assets in Japan is considering raising its annual dividend to 10,000 yen a share, amid booming earnings.

The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong rose 0.3% to 19,154.07, extending its record run after closing above the 19,000-level for the first time on Wednesday. Trading in Hong Kong was dominated by institutional investors building positions in Chinese financial stocks.

Shares of Bank of China soared 4.9% to a record close. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China gained 0.8%, but China Construction Bank fell 0.7%. The China Enterprises Index rose 0.9% to 8,312.41. The index all-time high is 9,452.86, set on Dec. 19, 1993.

Australia S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.7% lower at 5,392.60, New Zealand NZX-50 Index shed 0.5%, Indonesia JSX Composite lost 0.1% and South Korea Kospi eased 0.1%. Malaysia KLSE Composite gained 0.9%, Taiwan Weighted Price Index added 0.3%, Singapore Straits Times Index gained 0.8%, and Shanghai''s Composite Index rose 1%.

[R]6:30AM European markets trade flat Thursday morning on banking stocks.[/R]
European markets traded flat in early session on Thursday. By mid morning, London FTSE 100 gained 0.1 % to 6,237.6, Frankfurt Xetra Dax was marginally lower at 6,428.54, and the CAC 40 in Paris fell 0.1 % to 5,507.39.

Advancers

In Europe, carmakers were in focus as Volkswagen shares rose 2 % on speculation that German rival Porsche was to make a full bid for the company after raising its stake to 29.9%.
Porsche, which JPMorgan upgraded to neutral from underweight gained 4.2 %.

DaimlerChrysler shares gained 2.2% on speculation Mr Bernhard may be heading to the rival German manufacturer. Other carmakers also advanced. Renault gained 1.6%, while Peugeot added 3.7 %.


Decliners

Shares of Reed Elsevier the Anglo-Dutch media conglomerate, lost 1.9% after it said that its Harcourt Education division has been impacted by underperformance in the assessment business and a weak textbook market.

Peer Pearson shares slipped 0.3%. Infineon Technologies shares lost ground, down 2.6% in Frankfurt, after the fourth-quarter loss of the company narrowed to a below-forecast 36 million euros, from 100 million euros in the year-ago period.

Oil and gold

Light sweet crude oil for December delivery dropped 2 cents to $58.74 a barrel in electronic trading on the NYME. Gold opened Thursday at a bid price of $623.20 a troy ounce, up from $620.00 late Wednesday.

Currencies

The euro on Thursday slipped slightly against the dollar after U.S. Federal Reserve Bank minutes showed that it remained committed to curbing inflation by hiking interest rates. The euro bought $1.2806 in late morning European trading, compared with $1.2823 in New York late Wednesday. The British pound slipped to $1.8875 from $1.8892. The dollar was steady at 118.05 Japanese yen, the same level it was late Wednesday.

[R]5:00AM Gold and silver futures end mixed Wednesday following dollar moves.[/R]
The most-active December gold shed $1.50 to end at $623.80 a troy ounce. December silver settled 5.5 cents higher at $12.945 an ounce. January platinum moved $2.40 lower to close at $1,170.80 an ounce after hitting a nearly two-week low of $1,158. December palladium dropped to the lowest level in more than a month, $313 an ounce, before settling down 70 cents at $318.80. December copper advanced 0.55 cent to end at $3.0945 per pound.

The front-month December crude oil contract oil gained 48 cents to $58.76 a barrel. December heating oil settled up 2.92 cents to $1.6924 a gallon. December gasoline rose 3.73 cents to end at $1.5821 a gallon. December natural gas settled up 14.3 cents at $8.120 a million British thermal units.

On the New York Board of Trade, fund and other speculative buying pushed the December Arabica coffee contract, which ended higher 2.35 cents at $1.1815 a pound. Futures on raw sugar in foreign ports for March settled 0.12 cent higher at 11.79 cents a pound, while May finished up 0.12 cent at 11.90.