Asian Stocks Rise as Greek Bailout Progress, Yen’s Slide Boost Outlook By Yoshiaki Nohara - Feb 14, 2012

Asian stocks rose, trimming yesterday’s losses, as optimism Greece will commit to austerity measures and the yen’s drop to a three-month low against the dollar boosted the earnings outlook for Asian exporters.

Sony Corp. (6758), Japan’s No. 1 exporter of consumer electronics that gets 21 percent of its revenue in Europe, rose 3 percent. Elpida Memory Inc. (6665), Japan’s sole maker of memory chips, plunged 21 percent after saying it still hasn’t secured enough financing to stay afloat before an April debt deadline approaches. Westfield Group (WDC), a shopping mall operator, climbed 5.7 percent in Sydney after reporting its second-half profit jumped five- fold as property management and project income increased.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.5 percent to 125.59 as of 10:25 a.m. in Tokyo after falling 0.6 percent yesterday. Six of the 10 industry groups on the measure advanced. The Bank of Japan boosted its asset purchase program yesterday, pushing down the yen.

“Greece will buy time with a second bailout and avoid default, and the markets have been pricing that in,” said Takeru Ogihara, chief strategist in Tokyo at Mizuho Trust & Banking Co., a unit of Japan’s third-largest lender by market value. “The BOJ took stronger action than expected. Overseas investors seem to like it.”

Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average advanced 1 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific excluding Japan Index was gained 0.2 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.3 percent, while South Korea’s Kospi Index rose 0.5 percent.
Greece Commitment

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.1 percent today. The index lost 0.1 percent in New York yesterday, paring an earlier decline of as much as 0.8 percent.

Exporters to Europe advanced as the leaders of Greece’s two biggest political parties, New Democracy’s Antonis Samaras and Pasok’s George Papandreou, will send written commitments today to the so-called troika to stand by austerity measures, a government official said yesterday. The assurance to the troika -- the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank -- was a condition of a 130 billion euro ($171 billion) bailout.

Japanese shares extended yesterday’s gains after the yen touched 78.54 per dollar yesterday, the lowest level since Nov. 1. The nation’s central bank unexpectedly added 10 trillion yen ($127 billion) to an asset-purchase program and set an inflation goal.

“The yen is retreating and the world is moving toward more monetary easing as shown by the BOJ, supporting equities,” said Hiroichi Nishi, an equities manager in Tokyo at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 9.8 percent this year through yesterday, compared with a 7.4 percent advance by the S&P 500 and a 7.4 percent increase by the Stoxx Europe 600 Index. Stocks in the Asian benchmark are valued at 14.1 times estimated earnings on average, compared with 12.9 times for the S&P 500 and 10.9 times for the Stoxx 600.

To contact the reporter on this story: Yoshiaki Nohara in Tokyo at ynohara1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Gentle at ngentle2@bloomberg.net
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