Asia Pacific share market drifted lower on Tuesday, 26 August 2014, amid concerns over geopolitical development in Ukraine and Iraq. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slid 0.2% to 148.32.
Focus was on Europe where Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko will meet with top EU officials in Belarus later Tuesday. The meeting comes after Poroshenko dissolved Ukraine's parliament on Monday and announced that new parliamentary elections will take place on October.
Petro Poroshenko's office said the leaders would use the August 26 meeting to discuss ways to stabilise the situation in eastern Ukraine, energy security and Kiev's new trade deal with the European Union, which Russia has opposed.
Tensions are high as a second convoy of vehicles carrying what Russia describes as humanitarian aid tries to enter Ukraine while Kiev accuses Moscow of moving tanks across the border.
In Iraq, the OPEC oil cartel's second largest producer, Islamist militants who have overrun large swathes of the country's north and west are now being pinned back by U.S. military strikes that began on August 8.
The U.S. and its European allies have condemned escalating violence in Libya after Islamist militias took control of an international airport in Tripoli. Meanwhile, the U.S. is preparing to send surveillance aircraft into Syria to gather intelligence on Islamist targets.
Among Asian bourses
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All Ordinaries ends edge higher
Australian share market closed marginal higher in volatile trade, as gain aided by tracking overnight gain in US and European markets were more than offset by profit-taking after mixed domestic corporate results and concerns about soft commodity prices. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 102.70 points higher at 5637.60 and the broader All Ordinaries Index rose 1.70 points to 5634.50.
Materials and resources stocks continued falling streak for second consecutive day in the Sydney as the iron ore price slipped below US$90 a tonne. Resources giant BHP Billiton fell 0.1% to A$37.22. Main rival Rio Tinto fell 0.7% to A$64.11 and Fortescue Metals sank 1.4% to A$4.28.
Energy stocks also declined, with Origin Energy falling 2.2% to A$14.99, while Senex Energy was down 9% after unveiling a production outlook that was lower than analysts had expected. Woodside Petroleum, however, ended up 0.6% at A$44.14 as the price of Brent crude rebounded slightly to $US102.76 a barrel.
Scentre Group shares declined 2.3% to A$3.47 after the shopping centre operator expects to boost operating income from of its shopping centres by up to 2.5% this year.
Boart Longyear shares fell 12.82% to A$0.17 after mining services company announced plan to selling out to private equity after making a $US143 million first half loss.
Clothing and sheets supplier Pacific Brands nudged up one cent to 58 cents despite announcing a A$224 million loss and the sale of its workwear labels.
Nikkei close down 0.59%
Japanese share market closed down on Tuesday, 26 August 2014, amid profit booking after yen appreciated slightly from yesterday level against the dollar and on tracking drop in the future market. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed 92.03 points, or 0.59%, to 15521.22, with futures trading in Osaka also declining 0.6%. The Topix index of all first-section issues was down 0.49%, or 6.30 points, at 1,285.01.
The US dollar was at 103.87 yen in afternoon Tokyo trade, down from 104.01 yen in New York Monday afternoon as its recent rally in anticipation of higher U.S. interest rates ran out of steam. The dollar touched a seven-month high of around 104.20 yen in Tokyo Monday. A stronger yen is negative for exporters, as it decreasing the value of their earnings abroad in yen terms and enabling them to price their goods less competitively overseas.
Shares of Land Transportation companies declined the most in the Tokyo. East Japan Railway Co. sank 2.1% to 8,197 yen. Nankai Electric Railway Co slid 2.8% to 514 yen.
Financial stocks also ended lower on profit booking. SoftBank slid 1.8% to 7,261 yen, retreating for the first time in seven days. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Japan's biggest lender, declined 1% to 597.8 yen.
Kintetsu Department Store Co. sank 4.8% to 355 yen after cutting its full-year operating-profit forecast 45% to 4.1 billion yen.
Maruetsu shares rose 3.8% after a Nikkei report saying that supermarket operator will likely post a 50% jump in group operating profit for the year ending in February amid robust sales of higher-priced products such as domestically grown eel and beef.
Shanghai Composite drops 1% on IPO woes
Mainland China share market declined for second consecutive day, as investors set aside money for coming initial public offering. The benchmark Shanghai Composite declined 22.17 points, or 0.99%, to 2207.11 at the close. Turnover decreased to 134.41 billion yuan from Monday's 134.45 billion yuan.
Money market rates climbed above alarming level today amid concern new initial public offerings may divert funds from existing equities and may reduce liquidity in the market. The seven-day repo rate, a gauge of interbank liquidity conditions, quoted at 5.01% late afternoon, while the overnight repo, a benchmark measure of interbank funding availability, traded at a weighted average of 2.83%.
The Shanghai Securities News said that ten companies that will start to market IPO shares this week, including HMT Xiamen New Technical Materials Co. and Hubei Feilihua Quartz Glass Co., may freeze about 800 billion yuan ($130 billion).
BYD Co shares dropped 1% to 49.35 yuan, extending yesterday's 0.2% slump, after the car and battery maker posted worse-than-expected first-half results and warned profit may fall by as much as a fifth in the first nine months of the year. The company said yesterday that its net profit during the first six months fell 15.5% to 360.7 million yuan (US$59 million) from 426.9 million yuan a year earlier, dragged down by a 27% slump in vehicle sales volume. The firm also forecast a 12-22% drop in net profit in the first nine months of the year.
China State Construction Engineering Corp shares declined 0.3% to 3.17 yuan. The country's largest builder said yesterday its first-half net profit jumped 34.4% to 11.8 billion yuan (US$1.92 billion) even though real estate sales plunged from a year ago.
Hang Seng falls 0.37%
Hong Kong share market closed lower in volatile trade on Tuesday, 26 August 2014, amid profit booking after the benchmark measure climbed yesterday to highest level in six-years. Meanwhile, drop in the mainland bourses and lower trades on other regional market also intensified profit taking. The Hang Seng Index dropped 0.37%, or 92.41 points, to 25074.50. Market turnover stood at HK$64.47 billion, up from HK$63.41 billion on Monday.
Guangzhou R&F Properties tumbled 7.2% to HK$10.04, after the developer reporting first-half net income dropped 26% to 1.07 billion yuan from a year earlier and trimming its full-year home-sales target to 60 billion yuan ($9.8 billion) from 70 billion yuan.
Citic Pacific slipped 3% to HK$14.86 after the company yesterday said it completed a HK$286.6 billion ($37 billion) purchase of banking and brokerage assets from Citic Group Corp., adjusting the payment to include less cash and more new shares.
Shares of companies that supply goods to U.S. retailers declined after new-home sales in that country unexpectedly slid in July. Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings, which makes shoes for Nike Inc., fell 1.6% to HK$24.55. Li & Fung, the world's biggest supplier of toys and clothes to retailers, fell 0.8% to HK$9.80.
China Modern Dairy climbed 4.6% to HK$3.63 after the company said its first-half net income jumped to 523.2 million yuan from 153.6 million yuan a year earlier.
Sensex extends losses in mid-afternoon trade
Indian stock market extended losses and hit fresh intraday low in mid-afternoon trade. At 14:15 IST, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 86.72 points or 0.33% at 26,350.30. The CNX Nifty was down 32.05 points or 0.41% to 7,874.25.
Realty stocks declined. DLF (down 1.13%), Housing Development & Infrastructure (HDIL) (down 0.2%), Sobha (down 2.68%) and Unitech (down 2.22%) dropped. Cement stocks dropped. ACC (down 3.24%), Ambuja Cements (down 1.6%), and UltraTech Cement (down 1.44%), declined. Grasim Industries declined 2.49%. Grasim has exposure to the cement sector through its subsidiary UltraTech Cement.
Shree Cement declined 0.25%. The company's net profit fell 2.56% to Rs 277.02 crore on 11.45% increase in total income to Rs 1708.17 crore in Q4 June 2014 over Q4 June 2013.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought Indian shares worth a net Rs 127.33 crore on Monday, 25 August 2014, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.
Indian Supreme Court on Monday, 25 August 2014, deemed all coal block allocations made since 1993 as illegal. The allocations had no objective criteria and no fair and transparent procedure was followed, the Court said, adding they were impermissible. The quashing of these allocations still remains to be decided in further hearings. The court suggested the appointment of a panel of retired apex court judges to help the court in this matter. The case will be heard on 1 September next.
Elsewhere in the Asia Pacific region-- South Korea's KOSPI index rose 0.35% to 2068.05. Taiwan's Taiex index gained 0.04% to 9393.96. New Zealand's NZX50 added 0.25% to 5195.63. Singapore's Straits Times index fell 0.22% to 3330.28. Indonesia's Jakarta Composite index declined 0.74% to 5146.55. Malaysia's KLCI fell 0.03% to 1861.82.
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