Asia: Seven year high broken as sentiment improves
Tokyo Nikkei +0.09%
Hong Kong Hang Seng -0.62%
Shanghi Composite +0.11%
Seoul Kospie +0.33%
Mumbai Sensex +0.28%
Boosted by better geopolitical sentiment and following strong gains in the US, Asian equities mostly strengthened overnight.
The MSCI index ex-Japan broke a seven-year high during the session.
Deutsche Bank said all eyes remained fixated on the earnings season in the region "but it won't be long before the new issue pipeline becomes the center of attraction again".
Next week will see the remaining 170 Chinese companies report their results.
Julius Baer analyst Heinz Ruettimann said so far earnings reports have been encouraging. On a year-on-year basis, Chinese companies are delivering again and sales growth has increased by 10.3% while earnings growth has grown by 4.7%.
Overseas institutional investment in the region in August was at a slower pace than the previous month, according to HSBC.
Overall, foreign institutions pumped $3bn into Asian equities up until 25 August, with Korea receiving $1.4bn, Taiwan $800m and India $700m. In the more developed markets, Singapore remained preferred over Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, Malaysia remains the least foreign-owned market in the region, while Indonesia saw net outflows from overseas investors in its equities.
Capital Economics noted that the volume of world trade edged higher in June, thanks to stronger exports from developing economies, although exports from advanced economies continued to be very weak.
Data on world trade volumes from the CPB Netherlands Bureau showed a negligible 0.1% month-on-month increase in June, following a larger decline of 0.4% in May and leaves the three-month average growth rate at a fairly lacklustre pace, of just 3.2% year-on-year.
Export growth in China jumped from 7.2% year-on-year in June to 14.5% in July, still a little below their May peak. Japan rose by 3.9% last month after falling by 1.9% in June.
"Whilst Japan's export performance has been poor this year, its export climate index, which is an export-weighted average of the output PMIs of Japan's main trading partners, has reached its highest level since 2011 and suggest things will get better," said economist Tom Pugh.
Also in Japan, the government may look to try and avoid the shock impact its last sales tax increase by rolling a further planned increase in stages, an adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Reuters on Wednesday morning.
Abe will decide around the end of the year whether to proceed with another planned hike, to 10%, in October 2015 along with plans to cut the corporate tax rate - among the highest in the world at more than 35% - to less than 30% over several years.
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