Posts Tagged ‘Pacific’
Asian and Pacific stock exchanges were mixed on the first trading day of the new year, with Hong Kong and South Korean markets showing gains Friday and Australia slumping.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up 2.22 percent at midday, while Seoul’s KOSPI climbed 1.69 percent. The All Ordinaries index in Sydney had dipped about 0.69 percent by mid-afternoon, however.Tokyo’s stock exchange remained closed for the holiday Friday. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index closed Tuesday down 42.1 percent for the year.
Analysts expect 2009 to bring another bumpy ride for the global economy, with the world’s major economies — the United States, Japan and the European Union “Eurozone” countries — now officially in recession.
Most Asia and Pacific markets were solidly in positive territory Wednesday during limited trading on the final session of a dismal year.
Australia’s All Ordinaries index gained 1.9 percent, while the Shanghai Composite was up just 0.1 percent. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng picked up 1.3 percent and the Straits Times index in Singapore was up three-quarters of a percent.
Wall Street surged Tuesday in an end-of-the-year bargain buying spree as investors scooped up a variety of shares hit hard in the 2008 stock market battering.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 2.2 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 2.4 percent and the Nasdaq composite rose 2.7 percent.
All three major gauges jumped in the first few minutes of the session on news that the government will pour $6 billion into GMAC Financial Services, the financing arm of struggling automaker General Motors.
The advance lost some steam after the release of weak economic reports, but then recharged as the session wore on.
“We’re seeing a nice little rally in the last few sessions of the year, with everyone kind of just waiting for the year to be over,” said John Wilson, chief technical strategist at Morgan Keegan.
“I think people are anticipating a January rally and are trying to get in ahead of that,” said Ron Kiddoo, chief investment officer at Cozad Asset Management.
Wilson said that he thinks that the start of the new year should bring in more buyers and that stocks could see a bigger rally then. The lows of the fall were the lows of this bear market and the market is bottoming or has bottomed, he believes.Since bottoming on November 20, U.S. stocks, as measured by the S&P 500, have rallied 18 percent.
“When you look at past bear markets and recession, stocks tend to turn six or nine months before the economic data bottom, and I think that’s what we’re seeing now,” he said.
Kiddoo said he thinks that 2009 will be an up year, but added that he’s not convinced a rally will kick in as soon as January.
In other global trading, European markets gained on Tuesday.
U.S. light crude oil for February delivery fell 99 cents to settle at $39.03 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after gaining 13 percent over the previous two sessions.
Gasoline prices fell 0.3 cent to a national average of $1.616 a gallon, according to a survey of credit-card swipes released Tuesday by motorist group AAA.
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