Friday, April 29, 2005

RBI reports increased credit for operations

by Brian Turner

Indian businesses were seeking credit faster in 2004 than they have since the 1990s. This demand for credit came from businesses such as automobile parts manufacturers as well as from the more usual suspects, such as software suppliers and IT services.
According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), much of the demand [...]

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Reserve Bank of India fights wholesale price index inflation

by Brian Turner

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s central bank, left bank rates unchanged at 6 percent on Thursday, but it raised the repo rate, the interest rate paid by banks on short-term funds overnight, by 25 basis points to 5 percent.
Analysts believe that if India’s inflation rate passes above 6 percent, however, that [...]

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Japanese deflation continues

by Brian Turner

Predictions of economists are mixed as to whether Japan will be able to grow out of deflation any time soon, and the Japanese finance minister was quoted as saying that because the prices of some products have started going up and corporate profits are good, it is hard to know why deflation was continuing.
Consumer [...]

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Indonesia central bank raises rqates on growth fears

by Brian Turner

Indonesia, which was the hardest hit of all the regional economies in the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 and whose economy has remained behind all other Asian economies in its effort to recover from the crisis, is now faced with a decline in the value of the rupiah that has spurred fears of inflation and [...]

Japanese markets continue to suffer China protests

by Brian Turner

Technology stocks were down on the Tokyo markets on Monday, mainly due to the continuing effect of last week’s bad earnings reports from IBM and Samsung and because of worries concerning the pressure to drop prices for consumer electronics.
That, and the effect of current tensions on the steel and travel industries, sent the [...]

Monday, April 25, 2005

Tokyo markets slightly up on reports anticipation

by Brian Turner

In Japan’s technology sector, Hitachi rose 0.3 percent on Monday as investors awaited the release of a quarterly report that was expected to bring positive earnings news. But other tech stocks saw mixed results. Trend Micro fell 4.2 percent after a programming but caused machines using its software to malfunction. Matsushita Electric [...]

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Net sale of stocks from Tokyo dampens Nikkei

by Brian Turner

A report from the Ministry of Finance in Japan that foreign investors had sold ¥126 billion of Japanese stocks in the week ending April 16 after a net purchases the previous week, along with worries about inflation in the U.S., combined to send the Tokyo markets down in Thursday’s trading.
The Topix index was [...]

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Fears for Chinese growth

by Brian Turner

In the Asian markets on Wednesday, Bangkok, Seoul and Tokyo were up, but Manila and Shanghai were down.
Contributing factors were oil prices and concerns about China’s economic growth.
On the other hand, Intel’s positive earnings report didn’t seem to have much of an impact at all.
Bangkok’s SET index rose 0.9 percent [...]

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Japan stocks make small recovery

by Brian Turner

Stocks in most sectors of the Japanese markets were higher on Tuesday. This included airline and technology stocks.
The airlines had earlier seen large losses amid a great number of cancelled business and holiday flights to China the fears of many Japanese that travel in China would be unsafe in the wake of [...]

Friday, April 15, 2005

Samsung suffers profit weaknesses

by Brian Turner

Weak pricing power, oversupply, and an unfavorable exchange rate were among the reasons given for unfavorable figures when Samsung Electronics released it’s first quarter earnings report.
The report was filled with bad news, including that operating profits in its liquid crystal display division were 97 percent lower and in its semiconductor business they fell [...]

Japanese markets suffer rough Friday

by Brian Turner

With the Tokyo markets not doing especially well recently, analysts had further bad news on Friday. At least one analyst said that things will not likely turn around any time soon and the Nikkei could conceivably lose another 12 percent by the end of the year.
And indeed, both the Nikkei and Topix [...]

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Tokyo down for third day

by Brian Turner

A major scandal was the main reason that the Tokyo markets dropped for the third straight day on Wednesday.
Kanebo, a household goods company, as its shares fall 13.4 percent, a four-month low, on its admission that it had uncovered accounting fraud that totaled ¥150 billion over a five-year period.
Reports were that [...]

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Tokyo markets suffer bad trading

by Brian Turner

Tokyo technology stocks were down almost uniformly, but with one spectacular exception on Tuesday.
The exception was Kubotek, an electronics testing company, was up 16.3 percent on rumors that they have developed a faster method of testing for defects in large LCD panels.
Otherwise, Sony was down 1.8 percent, Cannon fell 1.6 percent, [...]

Monday, April 11, 2005

Anti-Japanese protests hit Tokyo markets

by Brian Turner

Rare public protests in China over the weekend that were aimed at Japan caused tensions between the two nations that were strong enough to send the Tokyo markets down on Monday, as shares of Japanese companies with connections to China fell in value.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries, which has contracts to build trains in China, [...]

Thursday, April 7, 2005

Bank of China negotiates public offering of foreign markets

by Brian Turner

The Bank of China has been negotiating with as many as ten potential foreign partners ahead of its initial public offering on foreign markets.
Among the potential partners are Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and UBS. The announcement comes after months of refusals by Bank of China to disclose exactly who it was [...]

Tuesday, April 5, 2005

Japanese stocks in bullish opening

by Brian Turner

Japanese markets were higher on Tuesday, with both the Nikkei and Topix indexes closing higher as the dollar strengthened in relation to the yen.
Automobile manufacturing was one of the sectors benefiting, with Toyota, Nissan, and Honda all up. Technology stocks, including Cannon, Matsushita, and Hitachi, also did well.
Onco Therapy Science, [...]

Possible merger of Chinese exchanges

by Brian Turner

The possibility of a future merger of the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges is said to be signaled by the launch on April 8 of a joint benchmark index of China’s top 300 companies by the two exchanges.
The launch of the new index might also shake up an equity market that has been [...]