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Asia Ends Higher, US GDP Data Eyed
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Asian markets ended mostly higher on Friday, as investors awaited the outcome of Greek debt talks and U.S. gross domestic product data due out later today.
The FTSE CNBC Asia 100 Index [.FTFCNBCA Loading... ()], which measures markets across Asia, was flat.
Japan's shares slipped, easing further from a three-month high hit earlier this week, after forecasts of big annual losses from NEC, Nintendo and Nippon Steel.
Shares of NEC Corp dropped 7 percent after the computer and electronics parts maker said it would cut 10,000 jobs to trim costs after announcing a loss of $1.1 billion for the three months to Dec. 31.
Nintendo slid over 4 percent after the company posted a sharp drop in quarterly profit and forecast a bigger-than-expected annual loss.
Elpida Memory sank 7.1 percent after the Nikkei business daily said the chipmaker is likely to book a roughly 90 billion yen ($1.16 billion) operating loss for the April-December period amid eroding memory chip prices.
The Nikkei [.N225
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] closed 0.1 percent lower at 8,841.22, but was up 0.9 percent for the week — its third week of gains. The broader Topix eased 0.5 percent to 761.13.
Seoul shares edged up to post a fifth straight winning session and a fresh six-month closing high, but the rally slowed to a crawl as profit-seekers continue to cash out, seeing limited room for additional upside.
Gains were led by brokerage shares, with Samsung Securities soaring 5.81 percent while Woori Investment & Securities rose 2.32 percent.
Samsung Electronics shares were up after the firm announced record profits for the fourth quarter shortly before the markets opened.
The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) [.KS11
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] closed 0.39 percent higher at 1,964.83 points.
Australian shares rose 0.4 percent, with miners the best performers of the day, supported by strong gains in commodity prices overnight and a global move towards riskier assets.
Global miner Rio Tinto rose 2.1 percent, BHP Billiton rose 0.6 percent and Fortescue gained 4.1 percent.
Gold miner Newcrest rose 3.8 percent, as gold prices headed for a fourth week of gains with the Federal Reserve's pledge to keep interest rates near zero for some time supporting sentiment.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 [.AXJO
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] index gained 17.1 points to finish at 4,288.4, its highest close since Dec. 8. New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 [.NZ50
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] index rose 0.4 percent to close at 3,294.6.
Hong Kong shares ended a topsy turvy morning session almost flat, dragged by weakness in Chinese shares as investors took profits among the outperformers in a January rally that had boosted the Hang Seng Index by more than 10 percent to date.
China Life Insurance [2628.HK
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] was the top drag, down 2 percent. Capping losses were the two biggest mobile telecommunication operators in the mainland, China Mobile [0941.HK
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] and China Unicom [0762.HK
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], which rose 1.2 and 1 percent respectively.
The Hang Seng Index [.KS11
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] inched down 0.04 percent to close at 20,431.96 points at midday.
In Southeast Asia, Singapore's STI [.FTSTI
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] closed in positive territory, up 0.7 percent, while Malaysia's KLCI [.KLSE
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] ended down 0.2 percent.
Finally, markets in China and Taiwan remain shut for the Lunar New Year holidays.
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Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
