Asian Stocks Gain as Australia & New Zealand Bank Rises on Higher Profit

Asian stocks rose for the first time in three days as Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. led gains among the banks after the lender reported higher profit.

Australia & New Zealand Banking, the nation’s third-largest lender, climbed 2.6 percent after reporting half-year profit that rose 69 percent as bad debts declined. Canon Inc., the world’s largest camera maker, gained 4 percent after the company raised its profit forecast. Mitsubishi Corp., which gets about 40 percent of sales from commodities, fell 0.6 percent after oil and metal prices declined yesterday.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.4 percent to 129.25 as of 9:52 a.m. in Tokyo, snapping its two-day decline of 2.1 percent. The gauge dropped for the first week in two months last week after China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, unexpectedly raised interest rates and said it grew at the slowest pace in a year.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average slipped 0.1 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index jumped 1 percent. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index rose 0.3 percent.

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index were little changed today. The index slid 0.3 percent yesterday in New York as investors speculated that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to shore up the economy will be gradual.

The Fed will probably announce a program to buy several hundred billion dollars of U.S. Treasury debt over the next few months, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, without saying where it got the information.

Estimates for the size of the program had ranged from $1 trillion at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch Global Research to $2 trillion at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., with economists at both firms agreeing the Fed will likely begin with a $500 billion plan after the Nov. 2-3 meeting.

The London Metal Exchange Index of prices for six industrial metals including copper and aluminum plunged 2.6 percent, the most since July 1. Copper futures tumbled 2.4 percent to $3.7755 a pound in New York after rising to $3.90, the highest level for a most-active contract since July 2008.

Crude oil for December delivery fell 0.7 percent to $81.94 a barrel in New York yesterday after a report showed U.S. orders for capital goods declined, and as the dollar strengthened.