Asian stocks decline as investors digest earnings; Fed in focus Asian equity markets declined on Tuesday as the regions corporate earnings season got underway and ahead of the Federal Reserves policy-setting meeting. Japans Nikkei led declines by 1 percent, Australias S&P ASX 200 retreated from the previous days five-year high and South Koreas Kospi fell 0.3 percent. Investors took their cues from a lackluster handover from Wall Street. Shares finished narrowly mixed in lackluster trading Monday; the Dow dipped 1.35 points while the S&P 500 eked out a gain of 2.34 points. Investors will be looking for clues from the Feds two-day meeting that kicks off later Tuesday as to when the central bank would start tapering its bond-buying program. Name Price Change %Change NIKKEI Nikkei 225 Index 14243.38 -152.66 -1.06% HSI Hang Seng Index 22806.58 --- UNCH 0% ASX 200 S&P/ASX 200 5421.20 -20.21 -0.37% SHANGHAI Shanghai Composite Index 2133.87 --- UNCH 0% KOSPI KOSPI Index 2042.22 -5.92 -0.29% CNBC 100 CNBC 100 ASIA IDX 7366.57 -34.89 -0.47% Nikkei sheds 1% Japanese investors digested a flurry of economic data released just before the market open. Household spending surged an annual 3.7 percent in September, outperforming expectations for a 0.5 percent increase, while retail sales jumped 3.1 percent from a year earlier, better than forecasts for a 1.9 percent gain. The Japanese are front-loading purchases ahead of the consumption tax. Thats why retail sales are up, said Alastair Newton, senior political analyst at Nomura. Index heavyweight Softbank fell 1 percent, while major tech exporters like Sony, Sharp and Nikon fell 1 percent each as the yen hovered around 97.6 per dollar in early trade. Apple-related shares were mostly lower after the tech giant reported a disappointing margin outlook after the U.S. market close. TDK Corp fell 1 percent while Murata Manufacturing fell 0.6 percent. Sydney 0.4% lower Australias share market took a breather after rallying to a five-year high in the previous session as investors focused on the latest earnings reports. Australia and New Zealand Banking jumped 2 percent after kicking off bank reporting season by posting a fourth straight year of record annual profits. Mining shares weighed on the index with Fortescue Metals leading declines by 1.6 percent while Rio Tinto fell 1.6 percent on the back of weaker copper prices. Meanwhile, the Australian dollar fell 0.4 percent against the greenback after Reserve Bank of Australia chief Glenn Stevens said that the currency remains too high and warned that it would be materially lower in the future. Kospi eases 0.3% Seouls benchmark index edged lower in early trade after the nations current account surplus fell to a seasonally adjusted $4.97 billion in September, from Augusts $7.7 billion surplus. Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors slumped 2 and 1 percent, respectively while SK Hynix added half a percent after reporting record quarterly sales and net profit on the back of solid memory prices.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 00:43:46 +0000