By Chao Deng and Bradford Frischkorn
Stocks in Tokyo rose for a fifth-straight session Wednesday as
the U.S. dollar marched higher, although shares of SoftBank Corp.
slumped after the Japanese Internet conglomerate disappointed
investors by cutting its profit forecast.
The U.S. dollar(USDJPY) rose above the Yen114 mark after news
that U.S. Republican Senate candidates won sweeping victories in
midterm elections, further bolstering political opposition to
President Barack Obama in Congress. The currency had been at
Yen113.61 late Tuesday in New York and has been strengthening since
mid-October, a positive for Japanese exporters who make profit
abroad in dollars. Check out MarketWatch's election blog recap
The Nikkei Stock Average added 0.4% to 16,937.32, accumulating a
gain of 10% over its latest four sessions, although most of those
gains came Friday and Monday after Bank of Japan's massive stimulus
move.
"Last week's unexpectedly aggressive Bank of Japan easing
action, combined with the Government Pension Investment Fund's
stock-heavy allocation shift, has been a game changer for equity
markets, raising the floor for stock values," says Norihiro Fujito,
senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley
Securities. "Still, some profit-taking is eventually going to
offset the new buying that takes place."
Lagging the market was SoftBank , whose shares lost 2.3% after
worse-than-expected results at its U.S. subsidiary Sprint Corp (S)
left it to cut its profit outlook. Still, SoftBank reported a
quarterly net profit of Yen483 billion ($4.26 billion), nearly
triple its year-earlier figure. That result also included a Yen563
billion gain from the firm's more than 30% stake in China's Alibaba
Group Holding Ltd. (BABA), which reported its first results as a
U.S.-listed company on Tuesday.
Stocks were mostly lower in the rest of Asia.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index , down 0.6%, led losses, after HSBC
reported that a gauge on services activity in China fell to 52.9 in
October from 53.5 in September. It was the second straight month of
deterioration and latest sign of slow growth in China.
The Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.1% to 1353.12, its first
drop in seven days.
In Hong Kong, PetroChina slumped 2.5% to HK$9.36 as Brent crude
hits a four-year low of $81.87.
Singapore's Strait Times was last up 0.2%. The local stock
exchange reopened late in the day after the exchange's operator
halted trading in securities and derivatives without stating a
reason for the disruption.
Heavyweight Korean exporters continued to bleed losses amid
worries that Japanese competitors would benefit from a weakened
Japanese yen. Samsung Electronics Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. were
down 1.2% and 2.6% respectively.
In Japan, Nissan Motor gained 2.1% after the firm's
second-quarter results beat the street consensus. Management didn't
change its full-year guidance despite raising its second-half
currency assumptions to USD/JPY 105 from 100.
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