Asian Stocks Rise as U.S. Jobs Fuel Recovery Hopes; Canon Gains

April 5 (Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks rose, led by companies reliant on sales in North America, as U.S. job reports boosted confidence the global economy is recovering.

Canon Inc., the world’s biggest camera maker, climbed 2.4 percent as the yen weakened against the dollar, lifting the earnings outlook for Japanese exporters. Toshiba Corp., Japan’s biggest memory-chip maker, gained 0.8 percent in Tokyo after the Nikkan Kogyo newspaper reported the company will double its annual production capacity of electric-vehicle motors. Samsung Electronics Co. rose 1.4 percent in Seoul after the Maeil Business Newspaper reported the company will expand a chip- making factory.

“There is increasing growth optimism now given that the job situation in the U.S. is getting a little more relaxed,” said Roger Groebli, Singapore-based head of financial-market analysis at LG Capital Management, part of the group that oversees $84 billion. “Exporters will benefit from that.”

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.2 percent to 126.76 as of 10:34 a.m. in Tokyo, with about three stocks advancing for each one that declined. The gauge has climbed 11 percent from a more-than-two-month low on Feb. 8 as a Federal Reserve pledge to keep borrowing costs low and a Japanese bank-lending program eased concern that budget deficits in Europe will derail the revival in the global economy.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average climbed 0.5 percent. Singapore’s Straits Times Index increased 0.6 percent and Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur Composite Index rose 0.4 percent. Markets in Australia, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and New Zealand are closed today for a holiday.

U.S. Payrolls

U.S. markets resume trading today after a holiday on April 2. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 0.5 percent after figures from the Labor Department showed U.S. payrolls rose for the third time in the past five months and the most since March 2007. The unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent.

“It’s a good, solid report,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said in a Bloomberg Television interview in New York. “It shows we’re getting stronger, and the economy is now creating jobs.”

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 1.7 percent last week as economic reports spurred confidence in the global recovery, boosting commodity prices. Stocks in the MSCI measure trade at 16.5 times estimated earnings, compared with 15.1 times for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index in the U.S. and 13.2 times for the Stoxx Europe 600 Index.

Exporters in Japan advanced on optimism the weaker yen will boost the value of overseas sales at when converted into the companies’ home currency. The yen depreciated to as low as 94.79 per dollar today from 93.85 at the 3 p.m. close of stock trading on April 2.

Increased Output

Canon, which gets 28 percent of its revenue in the Americas, climbed 2.4 percent to 4,505 yen. Toyota Motor Corp., which derives 31 percent of its revenue in North America, increased 1.1 percent to 3,815 yen.

Toshiba increased 0.8 percent to 508 yen. The company will double its annual production capacity of electric-vehicle motors to 120,000 units by the end of March 2012, the Nikkan Kogyo newspaper said.

Samsung Electronics gained 1.4 percent to 869,000 won after Maeil Business Newspaper reported the company will add a new semiconductor chip line at its factory in Hwaseong, South Korea.

The company, Asia’s biggest chipmaker, also rose after the price of the benchmark DDR2 dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chip rose 1.7 percent to $3.04 on April 2, ending a four- day decline, according to Dramexchange Technology Inc.

Hynix Semiconductor Inc., the world’s second-largest computer-memory chipmaker, advanced 1.6 percent to 28,600 won.