Market Update
Asian markets broke a two-day losing streak Wednesday and finished mostly higher, helped by positive cues from Wall Street overnight.
The Nikkei was up 1.9%, the Hang Seng gained 1.1% while t he Sensex inched up 0.2%.Sydney's All Ordinaries remained unchanged while the Shanghai Composite inched down 0.1%.
The yen was softer against the U.S. dollar after data showed the U.S. trade deficit fell to its lowest level in four years in November. The dollar gained 0.4% against the yen in the previous session.
The ChiNext which is China’s board for startup companies, jumped over 3% after regulators gave insurers permission to buy shares on the board.
Stocks on the Move
Japanese exporters such as Olympus were up 1.9%. Toshiba and Sharp Corp. gained 3.9% and 2.5%, respectively.
Nissan Motor accelerated 4.4% while Suzuki Motor Corp. was up 3%. But Mitsubishi Motors fell 4% after the company said it will raise up to $2.3 billion yen via equity financing.
Seven & i Holdings rallied over 6% after the company Tuesday reported a record high net-profit for the nine-month period between March and November.
In Hong Kong, Tencent Holdings and software developer Kingsoft were both up 1.4% and 4.6%, respectively.
Footwear major Belle International marched up about 13% after the company said it opened nearly 500 new retail outlets on the mainland in 2013 and posted a same-store sales growth of 1.3% for the footwear business.
Coal India was the top gainer on the Sensex, up 4.9%. Cipla rose 3.4%, Gail India gained 2.5% while Tata Power, Dr. Reddys Lab, Bajaj Auto and Tata Motors enhanced around 1.5% to 2.5% each.
Energy shares were up in Sydney following a gain for oil prices overnight.
Food producer Goodman Fielder gave up initial gains and remained unchanged on news it has agreed to sell its New Zealand meats and pizza businesses for about 15-17 million New Zealand dollars.