Market Report - Asia Ignores Bleak Tankan

Today Asian investors ignored rapidly weakening Japanese business confidence, as regional markets including the Nikkei rose on hopes about a U.S. auto industry lifeline.

The Bank of Japan's "tankan" survey showed the worst business sentiment in nearly seven years, including the largest quarterly fall in confidence since the 1970s oil shock.

For a nation already in recession, Japanese firms expect conditions to slide further in 2009, which may prompt another Bank of Japan rate cut this week.

Still, hopes that U.S. automakers will soon receive a financial bailout from the Bush administration lifted Japanese giant Toyota and Korea's Hyundai Motor.

The White House is weighing emergency funding measures after the Senate last week failed to forge a bailout plan for Detroit's Big Three.

Troubled financial stocks saw a reprieve as a Bank of Korea plan to supply nearly $5 billion in liquidity boosted banks there.

Meanwhile, Australia's top investment bank, Macquarie, jumped on reports it had bid for Citigroup's Australian wealth management unit.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• ntd
• market report
• asia stocks
• money
• trady
• economy
• price
• oil price
• nikkei
• KOSPI
• stock market

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