8:30AM Asia rallies with HK, South Korea leading the gainers, Japan advances on exporters.
Asian markets advanced on Friday.
In
Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 average gained 1.4% to 18,238. The market advanced after better-than-anticipated sales by U.S. retailers alleviated fears that a housing decline will hurt consumer spending in the U.S., the main export market for Japan. Canon, the world largest digital camera maker, advanced 1.7% and Honda, second-biggest automaker in Japan, jumped 2.5%. Nintendo Co., the biggest maker of hand-held game players in the world, advanced 1.1% in Osaka. Sharp, the biggest maker of liquid-crystal display televisions in Japan, advanced 1.3%.
In
Seoul, the Kospi benchmark rallied 2.8% to 1,962. Samsung, the largest maker of chips and mobile phones in Asia, surged 6.4%, the biggest increase since January 2004. Samsung released its quarterly figures today. Net income for the current quarter fell 5% to $1.6 billion. Posco, the fourth-biggest steelmaker, rallied 9.8%, the most since February 2002.
In
Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 index gained 0.4%, to 6,389. BHP, the world biggest mining company, gained 1.1%, a record high. Alumina, a partner with Alcoa Inc. in a venture with a quarter of the world alumina production capacity, gained 1.8%. Alumina was upped to neutral from reduce by UBS in Sydney. Rio Tinto fell 2.5%.
In
Hong Kong, China Mobile, led the rally, climbing 3.3% in Hong Kong. Ping An Insurance, China second-biggest insurer, gained 3.8%.
In
India, the Sensex on BSE, climbed nearly 181 points, or 1.2% to 15,272.72. Metals staged a strong rally with Hindalco soaring 6% and Tata Steel surging 3.4%. Other gainers included Reliance Industries, which gained 3% and Tata Motors which rose 3.8%.
8:00AM General Electric Q2 profit rose. It said it will quit the U.S. mortgage business.
General Electric (
GE: chart) said its Q2 net income rose $5.4 billion, or 53 cents a share, up from $4.9 billion, or 48 cents, a year earlier. Company’s revenue rose 12% to $42.3 billion vs. $37.7 billion a year earlier.
Excluding discontinued operations, earnings climbed 13% to 52 cents, up from last year''s 46 cents a share, meeting expectations of earnings of 52 cents a share on revenue of $41.7 billion. Quarterly profit was boosted led higher by its oil and gas, aviation, energy and commercial finance businesses.
General Electric announced Friday it will quit the U.S. mortgage business and sell off its existing loans. CEO Immelt said that they had sold $3.7 billion of WMC loans in the quarter. GE Money had strong growth in revenues and assets and increased its profit by 8%, despite losses in its WMC mortgage business.
GE said it will increase its 2007 share buyback program to $14 billion. The remaining $12 billion will be allocated during the second half of the year.
7:30AM NY – 6:30 PM Mumbai Sensex spurts 181 points led by rally in metal stocks.
The
Sensex on BSE finished 180.68 points higher Friday, or 1.20%, at 15,272.72.
The benchmark index opened 125 points higher on strong back of surge in New York trading and reached an intra-day record high of 15,331. The
market-breadth turned negative in the afternoon session with small and mid-cap stocks came under strong selling pressure. As 1,154 stocks advanced, 1,529 declined and 54 were unchanged. Of the 30 stocks in the Sensex, 22 advanced, while the rest declined. The turnover on BSE was Rs 6,714 crore compared with Rs 6,113 crore on Thursday. On NSE, the turnover was Rs 14,883 crore, higher than Rs 12,882 crore on Thursday.
Economic news
The weekly wholesale price index in India rose in the last week of June to 4.27% from a year ago, higher than 4.13% in the previous week and above analysts’ expectations of 4.10%, as prices of cereals, pulses and other food products increased. However, it was lower in comparison with the same time last year, which was 5.21%.
