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Asia Stocks Set For Most Weekly Gains in Year on Lower Europe Bond Yields
2012-01-13 10:39:20

Canon Inc. (7751), a camera maker that gets a third of its sales in Europe, climbed 3.2 percent in Tokyo. Inpex Corp., Japan’s largest energy explorer, gained 1.4 percent after saying it and partner Total SA will build a $34 billion liquefied natural gas facility in Australia. BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s largest mining company, rose 1.3 percent in Sydney after metal futures increased yesterday.

Once concern about Europe’s debt crisis is “lifted at least in the short-term, we should see some good performance in Asian equity markets,” said Diane Lin, a fund manager with Sydney-based fund Pengana Capital Ltd., which manages about $1.1 billion in global assets. ECB policy makers “have stabilized the whole situation. There’s a lot of bonds to be issued by European governments in the short-term. It is important for them to be able to refinance all those papers.”

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) gained 0.9 percent to 117.17 as of 10:25 a.m. in Tokyo, poised for its highest close since Dec. 8. The gauge is heading for its fourth weekly advance, the longest such streak since January last year, amid bets Europe will contain its crisis and China will ease lending curbs to spur growth in the world’s second-biggest economy.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average advanced 1.4 percent while South Korea’s Kospi Index gained 0.8 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index added 0.4 percent.

‘Reasonably Successful’

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained 0.1 percent today. The measure added 0.2 percent in New York yesterday after ECB President Mario Draghi said there were signs of stabilization in economic activity.

Exporters to Europe advanced after Spanish two-year rates fell to the least since March as the nation raised 9.98 billion euros ($12.8 billion) from a note auction, twice the maximum target. Italy’s two-year yields fell to the lowest since September as the nation sold 12-month bills at a yield of 2.735 percent, down from 5.952 percent at the previous auction.

“The ECB’s long-term refinancing operations looks reasonably successful with regard to the Spanish and Italian bond auctions,” Lim Say Boon, chief investment officer at DBS Private Bank, said on Bloomberg Television. “That’s keeping the appetite for risk up for the time being.”

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index advanced 2 percent this year through yesterday, compared with a 3 percent gain by the S&P 500 and a 2 percent increase by the Stoxx Europe 600 Index. Stocks in the Asian benchmark are valued at 12.2 times estimated earnings on average, compared with 12.3 times for the S&P 500 and 10 times for the Stoxx 600.

The London Metal Exchange Index (LMEX) of prices for six industrial metals including copper and aluminum rose 2.2 percent yesterday, its fifth straight daily gain.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan Burgos at jburgos4@bloomberg.net; Yoshiaki Nohara in Tokyo at ynohara1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Gentle at ngentle2@bloomberg.net





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