This is a transcript of top stories presented by China's CCTV Business Channel as produced by CNBC Asia Pacific.
Hello to our viewers all over China.
You're watching "Asia Market Daily", co-produced by CCTV Business Channel and CNBC, first in business worldwide.
I am Saijal Patel and here are the top stories across Asia today.
Financial markets in the region saw a mixed bag of action toady unable to shake off worries over the macroeconomic outlook.
In Japan the benchmark Nikkei 225 closed lower at six-tenth of a percent.
Blue chips shares - Sony, Honda and Canon all fell.
Automaker, Toyota also under further pressure after re-calling over 100 thousand Lexus vehicles in the U-S
Despite market expectations that Nikkei may hit seven month low in the next several sessions, Credit Suisse remains positive on Japan markets and upgraded its outlook to overweight.
Fan Cheuk Wan, Head of Research in Asia Pacific explains.
(Sot) Fan Cheuk Wan, MD and Head of Research Asia Pacific, Credit Suisse Private Bank:
"The key rationale for the upgrade for Japan is mainly due to its attractive risk reward profile, although we note the structural issue with the economic growth outlook for Japan, but indeed, the earnings growth of the Japan equity market would stand out as the fastest one in year 2010, and in year 2011, but current valuation have factored in very pessimistic growth assumption and currently the Japan market is only priced at 17 time 2010 p/e, and we roll forward to see 2011 earnings, the Japan market is only priced at 13 time p/e, which is a pretty steep discount, historical valuation rate.”
Meantime, South Korea's KOSPI also finished half a percent lower.
Samsung Electronics down despite saying it is on course to log a record quarterly operating profit.
We have more of that story in just a bit.
But first, going further south to Australia where the S&P ASX 200 closed lower by 6-tenths of a percent after hitting fresh intra-day lows.
There's market talk that National Australia Bank is set to lodge a revised proposal for its takeover of AXA Asia Pacific within a week.
With the Australian markets on a downtrend, Sean Fenton of Macquarie Private Portfolio Management thinks it's time to get into the market.
(Sot) Sean Fenton, Portfolio Manager, Macquarie Private Portfolio Management:
"I think across the broad industrials, there's pretty good value there. Obviously with a lot of uncertainty around the world, concerns of a double dip recession, anything with a degree of earning cyclicality is really being beaten up. a lot of risk aversion around the markets are hard better placed have really been taken a big hit across industrial spectrum, I think within the media looks particularly attractive, given that earnings are actually holding in there pretty well, and the ad cycle is coming back quite strongly, things like Channel 10 and Fairfax within the Aussie market, and Newscorp still pretty good value to us in the US market as well.”
The Agricultural Bank of China will debut in Hong Kong and Shanghai next week,
Ag Bank, the last of China's four big bank to go public is raising at least $19.2 billion, and that amount may hit $22 billion if over allotment options are exercised.
The bank, which is planning a dual listing, priced its Hong Kong shares at $HKD3.20 a piece and selling more than 22 billion shares in Shanghai at 2.68 yuan each.
Andy Mantel, CEO, Pacific Sun Investment on Ag Bank's pricing
(Sot) Andy Mantel, Founder & CEO, Pacific Sun Investment Mgmt HK:
“Well the pricing is reasonable, 1.7 price to book, there is not a large retail component for this IPO so I do see it being pretty flat actually I don't see any major downside or upside. Once it can be shorter, I’m not looking at it being shorter, I mean, the banks have come down for the last 6 months to a much more reasonable level, but you also have all the fund-raising taking place right now. $50 billion to the five largest banks, you've about $100 billion being raised by all the Chinese banks in a one-year window. So this is a massive undertaking, but once it's finished, you do have liquidity re-alignment, I should say."
Samsung Electronics, the world's Number 1 memory chipmaker, says it's on course to report a record quarterly profit.
The positive guidance fueled by robust sales of memory chips and flat screens in a strong consumer electronics market.
Samsung, also the world's largest maker of flat screen TVs, estimated its April-June operating profit at 5 trillion won, a little over 4 billion.
Though the figures are higher than expected, the key question now is: whether the company will be able to keep the momentum going forward.
Credit Suisse Private Bank's Fan Cheuk Wan again, with her guidance.
(Sot) Fan Cheuk Wan, MD and Head of Research Asia Pacific, Credit Suisse Private Bank:
“Samsung Electronics have significant exposure to the consumer electronic sector, and we believe domestic demand in Asia would also help the sales outlook of Samsung electronics. But do expect sequential growth momentum in the second half of the year would moderate because we're entering a more mature phase of the recovery so compared with the previous V-shape rebound in sales, we'd expect a more moderate gradient from Samsung.”
More good news on the technology front, this time from Taiwan.
HTC Corp, the world's largest maker of handsets posted a 33 percent increase in second quarter profit, as sales jumped 58 percent, beating expectations on all fronts.
Year-on-year revenues to the end of June increased from $2 billion to $3 billion.
The quarterly profit was the company's highest in more than 2 years.
Kelvin Tay from UBS is expecting more bright spots in the technology sector.
(Sot) Kelvin Tay, Chief investment Strategist, Singapore, UBS
"There are three reasons why we like the tech sector. One is basically the corporate replacement cycle. We believe that the corporate PC replacement cycle is likely to kick in quite strongly from the first quarter of next year onwards. Second, the handset replacement cycle. In Singapore, I think more than 80% of the subscribers who are changing their handphones are changing to a smartphone, and smartphones actually require more components, and more high value-added stuff than a normal handphone. Three, it's because I think a lot of the new applications that are coming out are very customized for what we call a touch-screen PC. I think increasingly, you're going to see more and more touch screen PCs coming out."
Asian companies wanting to their grow their companies are looking towards merger and acquisitions.
And more are considering cross-border deals.
According to Reuters, Asia Pacific M&A, excluding Japan, rose 78 percent in the last quarter with emerging market acquisitions now a third of the deal volume.
While the largest transactions still mainly originate in the United States and Europe, a slew of recent deals have come from places like China, and the trend is expected to rise further.
Jeremy Fearnley from KPMG on the Asian acquisition appetite.
(Sot) Jeremy Fearnley, Senior Manager, KPMG Corporate Finance:
“It's certainly been taking off in the last 6 months, we've been seeing huge amounts of appetite from some of the largest, particularly on the auto parts, particularly on the chemical sector, and looking into other areas into Asia Pac, into technology and obviously into minerals and resources space. Anything that is the luxury brand sector, anything that is, things that people can see tagging a real hole into China that they can direct to the affluent end of the market, and that's a great for those guys, then they're keen to go out for it."
Well, that wraps up today's business highlights.
I'm Saijal Patel from CNBC.
You're watching a co-production by CCTV and CNBC - first in business worldwide.
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