Asia Loses Ground

Ivaylo
12 Feb, 2007
New York City

Asian market finished lower Monday, with Hong Kong tumbling on China Mobile and property developers. In South Korea, shares ended lower on banking and technology stocks. The Australian benchmark index also lost but the material sector bucked the trend and gained. On the other hand, Chinese stock markets advanced on bargain hunting in large-caps. Markets in Japan were closed for a national holiday.

[R]7:30 AM Asia ends lower Monday with HK and South Korea leading decline.[/R]
Asian markets closed mostly lower on Monday. The Hong Kong Hang Seng Index closed 0.4% lower at 20,593. In Hong Kong, large-caps ended lower, led by China Mobile, which will have its weighting reduced in the Hang Seng Index and by property developers on worries about delays in U.S. interest rate cuts. China Mobile shed 1.6%. Hong Kong property developers declined after three U.S. Federal Reserve officials warned Friday they were ready to raise rates if U.S. economic growth was stronger than expected. Sun Hung Kai Properties dropped 1.7% and Cheung Kong Holdings fell 1%.

South Korean Kospi Index shed 0.9% to 1,414. Kookmin Bank dipped 2% after climbing 3.2% Friday, and Hana Financial Group fell 2%. Semiconductor makers settled lower, with Samsung Electronics off 2.2% and Hynix Semiconductor losing 2.2%. The Shanghai Composite Index soared 2.8% to close at 2,807. China Minsheng Banking gained 5.7%, China United Telecommunications rose 5.1% and China Petroleum & Chemical, known as Sinopec, advanced 4.8%. Australian S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.1% to 5,924. All sectors of the market declined except for materials, energy and utilities. BHP Billiton rose 1.9% but Fairfax fell 1.2% as concern over advertising revenue outweighed the fact that its net profit topped market expectations. Lend Lease declined 4.7% after warning that its first half profit would be flat.

[R]6:30 AM Europe was lower on Monday on weakness in financial and tech stocks.[/R]
European markets were lower on Monday. In early trade, Frankfurt Xetra Dax shed 0.7 % to 6,862.36, the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.7 % to 5,651.19 and London FTSE 100 slipped 0.3 % to 6,364.1.

Advancers

Infineon, German chipmaker, gained 1.7%. Infineon was best performing stock last week after announcing contract wins with Nokia and MasterCard. Share acquisition moves in the telecoms sector provided the market some succour. Spanish Telefonica said it had held talks with Italian Pirelli and was offered a small stake in Olimpia, which controls Telecom Italia. Telecom Italia shares gained 1.8 %, while Pirelli added 3.7% and Telefonica fell 0.6%. UK tour operator MyTravel Group bucked the lower travel sector trend, rising 26.4% after MyTravel and KarstadtQuelle-owned Thomas Cook agreed to merge to form an international leisure travel company. Vodafone Group rose 1.7% after the company agreed to buy a stake in India''s Hutchison Essar for $11.1 billion.

Decliners

ASML Holding, maker of equipment for manufacturing memory chips, fell 2%, while Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics shed 1%. Industrial groups took a hit after recent strong sessions. MAN, the German truckmaker, fell 2.1 % after questions were raised about its future following its failure to acquire Swedish Scania. Airline Air France-KLM and cruise ship operator Carnival Corp each trading down more than 1.2%.

Oil

U.S. crude oil for March delivery fell 82 cents in electronic trading. The contract was down 74 cents at $59.15 a barrel, while London Brent crude was off 67 cents at $58.34 a barrel in early trade in London.

[R]5:00AM Gold and silver advanced on Friday on oil climb and fund buying.[/R]
The most-active April gold advanced $9.50 to $672.30 a troy ounce. March silver ended 14.5 cents higher at $13.915 after hitting a high of $13.97, its best level since Dec. 14. April platinum settled up $3.50 at $1,201.80 an ounce and March palladium finished up 65 cents at $341.65 an ounce. Copper futures settled up 6.70 cents at $2.5175 per pound.

The crude oil contract settled up 18 cents at $59.86 a barrel after trading as high as $60.80, its highest since Jan. 2. March heating oil gained 0.01 cent to end at $1.7251 a gallon and March gasoline settled up 2.15 cents at $1.6148 a gallon. March natural gas settled down 4.4 cents at $7.827 per million British thermal units.

On the New York Board of Trade, Arabica coffee futures slipped to the lowest levels in more than three months. The March contract settled down 0.8 cent at $1.1475 a pound, trading as low as $1.1460 a pound. Futures on raw sugar in foreign ports hit four-day highs. March settled up 0.21 cent at 10.49 cents a pound, with May up 0.08 cent at 10.49 cents.