Asian equities sustain euphoric mood as upbeat global cues underpin

14 Mar 2012 Evaluate

Stock markets across Asia got off to an enthusiastic opening and are trading with significant gains on Wednesday as investors at large took to hefty position build up after sentiments got buttressed by overnight rally on Wall Street. Investors’ risk appetite got bolstered after the US markets logged the best gains in 2012 and scaled multi-year highs after US Federal Reserve slightly lifted its outlook, predicting the GDP to grow moderately this year, but the central bank held to its forecast that interest rates will likely stay near zero until at least 2014. Sentiments are also  getting support from encouraging global economic reports including German economic sentiment index which rose considerably in March, hitting its highest since June 2010 while the US retail sales registered the biggest gain of 1.1% in five months in February.

Most Asian bourses traded with large gains of over a percent each with the Japanese benchmark outperforming all its peers by a fat margin after jumping over two percent. Nikkei fervently rallied to the highest levels seen in around seven months and was just shy of the psychological 10,100 levels as news of surge in US retail sales boosted the earnings outlook for exporters while they received a further lift from the weakness in yen against the US dollar. The frontline equity index in South Korea too surged around one and half a percent to seven month high levels.

Shanghai Composite advanced 10.77 points or 0.44% to 2,466.56, Hang Seng surged 253.66 points or 1.19% to 21,593.36, Jakarta Composite climbed 34.32 points or 0.86% to 4,042.96, KLSE Composite ascended 10.08 points or 0.64% to 1,574.10, Nikkei spurted 225 200.89 points or 2.03% to 10,099.97, Straits Times soared 32.96 points or 1.10% to 3,022.03, Seoul Composite jumped 28.70 points or 1.42% to 2,053.74 and Taiwan Weighted garnered 113.37 points or 1.41% to 8,144.88.

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