Date: Tuesday 15 Jun 2010
The Nikkei held onto modest gains on Tuesday, shrugging off earlier weakness, as carmakers continued to make headway and investors mulled new measures from the Bank of Japan to boost the country's economic recovery.The BoJ today outlined a new 3trn yen or $33bn credit programme for companies. The temporary loans, provided through banks, will be introduced at the end of August at a rate of 0.1%. The central bank, as expected, kept interest rates at 0.1% following its two day monetary policy meeting.
Meanwhile shares on the move included Nissan Motor which rose 4% after it was upgraded to “outperform” from “neutral” by Macquarie Group. Toyota rallied 2% while Honda motored 1.8% higher at 2,759 yen.
Games giant Nintendo advanced 2.2% after the group said it would reveal its new 3-D portable game player later today in Los Angeles.
However concern about Europe’s debt problems weighed on market sentiment and hit exporters such as Canon. Shares in the camera maker fell 0.66% while Fanucskidded 0.5% to 10,570 yen.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed up 8 points at 9,888.
The Hang Seng also eked out small gains on Tuesday with banks providing the bulk of the advance. ICBC rose 0.87%, China Construction Bank added 0.8% while HSB Crose 0.7% in Hong Kong.
Upbeat data on the Chinese economy spurred some buyer appetite. The Conference Board’s leading economic index for China rose 1.7% to 147.1 in April compared with a revised 1.2% in March. Meanwhile stocks exposed to Europe such as Esprit were sent lower on concern about Moody’s downgrade of Greece’s credit rating to 'junk' status.
The Hang Seng index settled 10 points ahead at 20,062.
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