Sony reports its earnings for the fiscal year 2007 on Wednesday. Its stock hasn't had a very good 12 months -- down 25% year-to-date. The maker of PlayStation, is expected to post an operating profit of 393.6 billion yen (US$3.79 billion) in a poll of 17 analysts by Reuters Estimates.

Taiwanese stocks have so far, bucked the negative trend of Asian markets this year. The TaiEx is up 5.4 percent year-to-date. Will this rally continue as the year progresses?

A rally is always something to get excited about, particularly after a market fall of around 50%. And that's exactly what Chinese stocks are experiencing at the moment. The Shanghai Composite Index is up 17% the past week due to strong earnings results and the reduction of stamp tax duties on share trading.

Fill up the tank or heat the wok -- your car or your stomach? It's not a choice we usually expect to face, but welcome to a central inflationary dilemma.

The Year of the Rat hasn't treated Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index very well so far. Year-to-date, the index is down over 10 percent. But things have been picking up of late. Month-to-date, the Hang Seng is up 9 percent. Is the Index turning a corner?

The India story remains the same. Both indexes are defined by the January 2008 pile driver low . The sudden retreat in the markets set the bedrock foundation for future falls. Both of the India indexes, the Nifty 50, and the SENSEX have reached the targets set by these pile driver lows. These are generally minimum targets and the SENSEX has dropped down to 14,600 before finding support.

Couple or de-couple? To what extent are Asian economies linked to the U.S.? This question has been raised more frequently of late. While the jury's still out on that, it's clear that U.S. markets have an impact on Asia -- they are a leading indicator of the probability of trend continuation, or trend change in Asian markets.

The particularly interesting question is the relationship between the Dow, Nasdaq and the S&P 500. While the Dow grabs the headlines, the real recovery work is being done in the Nasdaq. Watching this performance gives a lead to Asia markets, and also highlights the behaviors which may signal consolidation and trend recovery.

The U.S. markets show a 'leaders and laggards' effect. The Dow, S&P and Nasdaq all show common end-of-uptrend patterns. Each is moving towards the chart-pattern projected downside targets. But only the Nasdaq has reached the target and developed a leading indication of the nature of trend rebound activity.

Trading in Chinese companies is a complex undertaking. Many firms like PetroChina and ChinaMobile are listed in Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York. Multi-listings are not unusual. What is unique, is the performance of Hong Kong's China Enterprise Index (CEI), where Chinese companies are listed.

Monday's Asian market rout on news of the Bear Stearns fire sale and the Fed's 25 basis point rate cut, hit Japan's Nikkei 225 Average hard.

The Nikkei closed, down 454.09 points, or 3.7 percent, to 11787.51. The index was down for the third straight trading session. And it's lost 1073.62 points, or 8.3 percent, over the past three trading days.

Monday was also the largest three-day point and percentage decline since January 22, the largest one-day point and percentage decline since March 3 and the Nikkei's lowest closing level since August 8, 2005.

Month-to-date, the Nikkei is down 13.3 percent. So far this year, it's down 23 percent.

The yen has surged to an eight-year high against the U.S. dollar as the greenback takes a hit from expectations for aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate cuts to counter the widening credit crisis and the economy's fall towards a recession.

The yen's rise has hit Japanese shares, raised worries about the health of Japanese exporters and stirred speculation that authorities in Tokyo may resume intervening to block yen strength after having stayed out of the market for four years.

And Charting Asia thinks this is the perfect time to take a look at the dollar/yen trend.

The support and resistance character of the dollar/yen (USD/JPY) chart provides reliable potential pivot points for a trend. As the price approaches a known support level, traders can position themselves in anticipation of a change in the trend.

In an uptrend, such as that in May 2005, a move above the resistance level at 109.00 was a clear signal of up trend continuation. More recently, in the context of the downtrend, the move below 109.00 is a clear signal of downtrend continuation.

This framework allows traders to set accurate trigger points and downside, or upside targets. We start with the monthly chart to identify the strategic resistance and support framework. Then we move into a smaller time frame to look for validation of the monthly chart analysis.