Asia: China hit by industrial profits data, Japan recovers following Moody's confidence boost

Asian stocks were mixed on Tuesday as the Chinese market was hit by negative data while Japan recovered from Monday's losses.

Japanese shares recovered from the uncertainty around the Greek elections results and rose by 1.72%, after rating agency Moody's said Asia will be resilient to global macro-economic challenges in 2015.

“As global growth remains subdued with brighter prospects in the US offset by lacklustre growth in the Euro Area and Japan, and China’s ongoing slowdown, Asia’s resilience will become increasingly evident,” said chief credit officer Michael Taylor.

The yen weakened against the dollar to ¥118.06.

However, the Shanghai index was down 0.89% and Hang Seng declined 0.41% after industrial profits data dropped 8% year-on-year in December compared to -4.2% the month before. This was the biggest drop since 2011.

Copper rebounded slightly after the poor Chinese data results. On LME, three-month copper futures rose 1% to $5,597.50.

Australia's index ASX re-opened on the high after the bank holiday by 0.83% despite declines in oil and mining stocks. Healthcare, consumer and financial sectors drove the index's jump.

Furthermore, Australian business confidence improved in December to 2 points from 1 in the previous month.