Asian stocks displayed an increase last week, as investors gained confidence on the U.S. economy upon the release of a number of favorable economic data about the world’s largest economy.
James Hardie Industries SE, supplier of building materials that considers the U.S. as its largest market, surged up by 6.8 percent in Sydney. A Japanese car manufacturer that sells its products internationally, Honda Motor Co. also gained an increase of 2.8 percent in Tokyo. Moreover, Gloucester Coal Ltd., an Australian coal explorer, also experienced a rise of 21 percent right after the company was bought by China’s Yanzhou Coal Mining Co. Samsung Electronics Co., the South Korea’s biggest exporter of consumer electronics also increased 2.2 percent in Seoul. HTC Corp, developer of smartphones, climbed 17 percent higher in Taipei after announcing it plans to buy previous shares.
After its fall on the start of the week due to the news on the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong IL, MSCI Asia Pacific Index was up by 1.1 percent this week. Despite the possibility that Europe’s debt crisis will hamper the global economic growth, the index was only fell by 17 percent this year.
Tim Schroeders said that the U.S. economy is quite strong as it does not slide down similar to those of the European economies. The real question on the other hand, said Schroeders is how long the U.S. economy could sustain these gains now that the global economy is still on a holiday period.
Among the ten industry groups present in the Asia-Pacific region, the power and utility sector had experienced the biggest fall in this year. Tokyo Electric Powers Co. (TEPCO) dropped 3.1 percent this week, further augmenting its 2011 fall to 89 percent. Following TEPCO is OneSteel Ltd., an industrial metal manufacturer, whose annual decrease on its stocks now plunged to 71 percent this week as Posco, a company based in Korea and the world’s third largest manufacturer of steel, denied the issue saying that it will purchase the OneSteel.
Amid news on the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, South Korea’s Kospi Index was up by 1.5 percent, rebounding back from its 4.9 percent drop last December 19. Also, Nikkei 225 Stock Average of Japan decreased by 0.1 percent, failing to recover from its previous fall. The Shanghai Composite Index also went down by 0.9 percent. The same fall went with Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 with 0.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the Hang Seng Index of Hong Kong increased by 1.9 percent while the Straight Times Index of Singapore also climbed by 0.7 percent. After Taiwan’s Vice Premier Sean Chen announced that the country’s National Stabilization Fund has plans to purchase stocks to support local market Taiex index was up by 4.8 percent.