Asia report: Most markets higher after G7 meeting, Pyongyang missile launch

Markets in Asia were mostly higher on Monday, after a weekend in which trade protectionism was on the agenda as finance chiefs from the world’s seven largest economies gathered for a G7 meeting in Italy.

Geopolitical tensions were also at the fore, after yet another missile launch from North Korea.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 0.07% lower at 19,869.85, as the yen weakened against the greenback.

It was last off 0.08% at JPY 113.47 per $1.

Ailing technology firm Toshiba posted its results, booking an unaudited JPY 950bn net loss for the financial year.

Its stock still managed a rise of 3.44% by the time markets closed in Tokyo.

On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite was 0.22% firmer at 3,090.23, while the smaller, technology-heavy Shenzhen Composite was 0.38% higher at 1,827.02.

Industrial production data for April for China missed forecasts, rising 6.5% instead of the expected 7.1%, down from the 7.6% expansion sees in March.

Fixed asset investment data was also released on Monday, with that reading growing 8.9% in the first four months of the year - falling short of the 9.1% Reuters-pooled estimate.

Retail sales managed to do better than expected, increasing 10.7% year-on-year in April, ahead of the 10.6% forecast but still short of the 10.9% booked in March.

South Korea’s Kospi finished up 0.2% at 2,290.65, while the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong finished up 0.86% at 25,371.59.

Finance ministers and central bankers discussed the risks of a more protectionist United States at the G7 finance meeting in Italy over the weekend, following a similar theme to the G20 meeting in March, in which leaders failed to jointly endorse the concept of free trade.

Locally, tensions were fuelled by the launch of another missile from the belligerent Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on the peninsula’s north.

It reportedly landed in the sea near Russia without too much incident.

Finally, markets were dealing with the fallout of the ‘WannaCry’ global cyberattack, which began spreading among unsecure, largely Windows XP machines on Friday, wreaking havoc for the UK’s National Health Service among other organisations.

During the Asian session on Monday, traders seemed to largely brush off the risks of the cyberattack, perhaps reassured it was only infecting older, less secure systems thus far.

Oil prices were up strongly during the session, after reports that energy ministers from Russia and Saudi Arabia had reached agreement that production cuts needed to be extended until March 2018.

Brent crude was last up 2.42% at $52.10 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate added 2.49% to $49.06.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.03% to close at 5,838.40, with BHP Billiton shares adding 0.29% after it prepared to take the wraps off plans to extract more value from its shale assets.

The major miner had been under pressure from activist shareholder Elliott Management to restructure recently, and on Monday also confirmed plans to rebrand and drop the ‘Billiton’ from its name.

One of the largest newspaper publishers in Australia and New Zealand, Fairfax Media, was offered AUD 2.76bn by TPG Capital Management for the entire firm.

An earlier, surprise bid from TPG this month was only for the company’s bigger newspapers and internet properties.

The publisher’s shared rocketed after the announcement, finishing up 6.54% in Sydney.

Across the Tasman Sea, the S&P/NZX 50 was down 0.3% at 7,429.94, with a drought of domestic news seeing exposed stocks dictate the benchmark.

Dairy products and baby food exporter A2 Milk was among the big losers, off 2.5%, as the disappointing Chinese data had an impact on companies exposed to the pseudo-capitalist economy.

Both of the down under dollars were strongly ahead on the greenback, with the Aussie last ahead 0.69% at AUD 1.3443 and the Kiwi advancing 0.65% to NZD 1.4477 per $1.