Auto firms fuel Asia

GLOBAL MARKETS

Asian stocks rose, driven by the biggest two-day gain in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average this year. Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co advanced after the yen extended declines against the dollar and the euro, boosting the value of their overseas sales.

The Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia-Pacific Index rose 0.5 per cent to 142.91 as of 4:28 pm in Tokyo. The Nikkei 225 gained 0.9 per cent to 17,163.20, after climbing 1.6 per cent yesterday. All markets open for trading advanced, except Indonesia and New Zealand. The Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand were little changed.

Toyota, the world's second-largest automaker, rose 0.9 per cent to 7,740 yen. Honda Motor Co, Japan's No 2 automaker, added 0.7 per cent to 4,160 yen. Advantest Corp, the biggest maker of memory-chip testing equipment in the world, climbed 0.9 per cent to 5,420 yen. Sharp Corp, the No 1 maker of LCD televisions, gained 1.1 per cent to 2,255 yen.

The yen weakened to as low as 118.02 per dollar from about 117.25 at yesterday's stock-market close in Tokyo. The Japanese currency was recently 156.65 per euro, compared with about 155.80 when share trading ended yesterday.

US

US stocks were little changed after a larger-than-forecast increase in housing starts was offset by concern the Federal Reserve policymakers may lean toward raising interest rates as they begin a two-day meeting.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index is set to post its second month of losses, the first such back-to-back decline since April 2005, amid concern the housing market has yet to stabilise and signs of increased delinquencies on mortgages. The S&P 500 rose 0.27 to 1402.33 at 10:06 am in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased 2.24 to 12,223.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 1.32, or 0.1 per cent, to 2395.73.

Europe

European stocks fell for the first time in four days as concern that economic growth is slowing in the US outweighed speculation that takeovers will increase. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index dropped 0.2 per cent to 363.66 as of 1:35 pm in London. The Stoxx 50 sank 0.3 per cent, and Euro Stoxx 50, a measure for the 13 nations sharing the euro, declined 0.6 per cent.

National benchmarks decreased in all of the 18 western European markets except Luxembourg, Iceland and Norway. The UK's FTSE 100 slipped 0.4 per cent. Germany's DAX lost 0.5 per cent as did France's CAC 40.

Saint-Gobain, Europe's biggest supplier of building materials, decreased 1.7 per cent to 69.9 euros. The company makes 16 per cent of its sales in North America.

ASML, the region's largest maker of machines for chip fabrication, sank 1.2 per cent to 17.59 euros. The company makes 24 per cent of its revenue in the US

ABN Amro gained 2.7 per cent to 30.75 euros, building on a 9.7 per cent surge yesterday. Barclays is offering more than $80 billion for ABN Amro, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people close to the matter.