21 Apr 2008 | 15:01
Asian equities spurred by Wall Street gains
Asian equities rose today, tracking positive cues from the last weeks US markets as the risky assets, especially equities were seen gaining favor as risk appetite rose. The major indices in Asian shrugged off the soaring crude oil prices and recorded an across the board rally.
Meanwhile, better than expected earnings reports from Google, Honeywell, and Caterpillar helped spur the US equities in the Fridays outing. Citigroup posted a $5.1 billion loss for the first quarter, but the stock market still moved higher on growing hopes that the worst may be over for the current credit crisis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 228.87 points, or 1.81% to 12849.36, the Standard & Poors 500 index rose 24.77 points,
The momentum seemed to be continuing in Asia today. Japan's Nikkei settled at a two-month closing high as exporters like Honda, Toyota and Nissan revved higher.The declining yen and fading concern about future company earnings boosted sentiment and helped the Nikkei close up 220 points at 13,696. Exporters Canon, Sony and Hitachi also climbed strongly.
The Hang Seng tracked a rally on Wall Street on Friday, while market sentiment received a boost following Chinese regulators' move to cut back on sales of non-tradable shares. The Hang Seng closed up 523 points at 24,721. The Chinese markets also seemed to have come out of the recent spate of loses after the recent rounds of monetary tightening and ended marginally up at 3116.98 or up 0.72% for the benchmark Shanghai Composite.
The Indian equity markets also tracked the overall strength in Asian equities and rose by about 1% with BSE Sensex holding firm on sustained buying in blue-chip stocks. Buoyant global markets helped local market overshadow a steep 50 basis points hike in cash reserve ratio (CRR) announced by the Reserve Bank of India late on Thursday, 17 April 2008.
Crude oil prices lingered above $117 today, showing no signs of abating while Japanese Yen was mixed after tumbling sharply on Friday.
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