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Asia picks itself up after Wall St. stumble
staff and wire reports
HONG KONG, China -- Japan's Nikkei index has broken back above the 9,000 mark, as Asian stocks pick themselves up into Thursday afternoon after Wall Street's stumble. The Nikkei ended the morning up 1.31 percent at 9,001.04, the first time since October 4 it has risen above 9,000. The Topix finished the session up 0.9 percent to 889.35. Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea are also up more than 1 percent, with Hong Kong up 0.76 percent. But stocks in Australia and New Zealand are again experiencing a mild selloff. U.S. stocks stopped their run on Wednesday, falling for the first time in five days. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 2.66 percent, with Nasdaq down 3.9 percent. (U.S. roundup) Wall Street is processing a stream of third-quarter earnings, with Ford and Coca-Cola warning on the rest of the year but IBM's earnings holding up. (IBM beats Street) Disappointing earnings from Intel after the bell on Tuesday had little effect on Japanese techs. Chips up in JapanChips in Asia seemed to take their lead instead from Advanced Micro Devices, which posted a loss but said fourth-quarter sales are looking good. (Full story) Chip and computer maker NEC Corp. ended the morning up 2.45 percent at 502 yen. Fujitsu is up 1.09 percent at 463 yen, with Hitachi one of the few losers, down just 0.18 percent at 552 yen. Cell-phone service NTT DoCoMo is also giving ground, the market's largest listing down 0.41 percent at 241,000. Wednesday's laggard, chip-testing equipment maker Advantest, ended the morning up 3.93 percent at 4,230 yen.
Equipment maker Shimadzu Corp. is topping the volume charts, up 9.01 percent to 351 yen. The company has attracted individual investors ever since employee Koichi Tanaka won the Nobel prize in chemistry last week. Retailer Daiei continued its run, which saw it add 19 percent on Wednesday. By the midday break, it was up another 8.63 percent to 151 yen. The debt-heavy company reports earnings on Friday and is thought to be arranging a bailout. The yen is a little stronger at 124.31 over its New York close. It hit a four-month weak point of 125.02 on Wednesday. Haruhiko Kuroda, Japans vice finance minister for international affairs, said the move is "a natural, correctional process after an excessive yen rise," according to Reuters news agency. Korea just in frontSouth Korea is narrowly the best-performing index in Asia on Thursday, the Kospi up 1.49 percent at 645.76 at 12:30 p.m. local time. That's a fifth straight day of gains, given impetus by a 15 percent "limit up" run from chipmaker Hynix Semiconductor, at 400 won. AMD's sunny outlook is also boosting rival memory chip producer Samsung Electronics, ahead 1.64 percent to 310,000 won. Hyundai Motor showed no reaction to Ford's disappointing earnings on Wall Street. (Ford disappoints) Korea's largest carmaker is up 2.93 percent at 31,600 won, with subsidiary Kia Motor up 4.71 percent at 8,900 won. Telecom stocks are being hurt by plans for companies to spend 1.8 trillion won this year to stem the tech slide. Cell-phone service SK Telecom is down 3.59 percent at 228,500 won, with fixed-line company KT Corp. off 0.94 percent at 52,500 won. Taiwan rebounds from flat startTaiwan's Taiex is up 1.29 percent at 4,277.66 shortly before noon, after a flat opening. The market largely shook off Nasdaq's fall and an 18 percent drop in Intel. Chip foundry TSMC has turned around from a lower open and stands at T$43.50, a 0.23 percent rise. Chip-set maker Via Technologies is up the daily 7 percent limit at T$47.00, while Au Optronics is up 5.49 percent at T$19.20. Memory chipmaker Mosel Vitelic is another strong performer, with a 3.23 percent gain to T$6.40. Australia maps Wall StreetAustralia's S&P/ASX 200 index is down 0.35 percent to 2,983.3 despite a 0.61 percent rise in largest stock News Corp. to A$9.87. Gold stocks are still depressed and most big caps are following Wall Street's lead. Telstra Corp. is down 0.62 percent at A$4.79. Banks have given up their head of steam, both NAB and Westpac down just over 1 percent. Qantas Airways is down 0.27 percent to A$3.75 ahead of its annual meeting after the close on Thursday. The story is similar in New Zealand, where the Top 40 is down 0.23 percent at 1,989.67. Air New Zealand is again suffering the from its possible exclusion from a proposed Top 50 index, down 3.85 percent to NZ$0.50. The company is 82 percent owned by the government, and the New Zealand Stock Exchange has proposed only including freely traded shares. Telecom New Zealand is up 0.20 percent at NZ$5.07. Property up in Hong KongHong Kong's Hang Seng index is up 0.76 percent at 9,530.85 in late morning trade, property companies driving the market forward. Hysan Development is leading the sector with a 2.5 percent addition to HK$6.10. But Tycoon Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong Holdings is up 1.52 percent at HK$50.25, and Henderson Land and the Hang Lung Group also higher. Cathay Pacific is also moving up, gaining 2.2 percent to HK$11.55 and still showing scant effect from the bombings in Bali. Singapore's Straits Times index is up 1.16 percent at 1,455.71 shortly before noon, with tech stocks and SingTel showing gains.
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