The Asian markets have made a mixed start with many of the indices trading marginally in red, leading the pack is China, down by about a percent after a government report showed that Chinese industrial companies’ profits fell for a fourth month in July. Industrial profits fell 5.4 percent in July from a year earlier. The Industrial companies’ profits in the first seven months of the year declined 2.7 percent to 2.7 trillion yuan, compared with a 2.2 percent drop in the first half and a 28.3 percent gain in the same period in 2011. Meanwhile, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has urged extra measures to support exports and help meet economic targets. Wen Jiabao said difficulties in stabilizing the expansion are "still relatively large" and called for measures to promote export growth to help meet the country’s annual economic targets. On the same time, Japanese stocks gained on assurance of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and China Premier Wen Jiabao that central banks will move to boost growth in the world’s two largest economies.
Shanghai Composite was down by 20.98 points or 1.00% to 2,071.13, Hang Seng was marginally down by 16.76 points or 0.08% to 19,863.27, Straits Times was lower by 3.43 points or 0.12% to 3,046.86, Kospi Composite was down by 4.86 points or 0.25% to 1,914.77 and Taiwan Weighted has lost 8.06 points or 0.11% to 7,469.20.
On the other hand, KLSE Composite was up by 1.13 points or 0.07% to 1,649.34, Nikkei 225 has gained 30.46 points or 0.34% to 9,101.22.