Asian stocks sceptical of Wall St bounce
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
HONG KONG, Feb 12 (Reuters): Asian shares edged higher Tuesday after the latest bounce on Wall Street failed to dispel fears about a US recession, while supply worries kept commodity prices high.
Global investors are alert for any sign of further fallout from the sub prime mortgage crisis which could weaken the financial sector and are worried about a possible downgrade of US bond insurers, so-called monolines such as MBIA.
"There's been talk for a long time that a (credit) rate cut decision on the monoline firms was due in mid-February, and we're almost there now," said Nagayuki Yamagishi, a strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities.
"Even though people know this is likely to happen, and when, the fact is that there is still quite a lot of worry out there about the issue."
The grim stock market mood has given Japanese government bonds some support, but buyers were reluctant to jump into bonds before the March 31 fiscal year end, dealers said.
MSCI's index of Asian stocks outside Japan was up 0.5 per cent at 2:30am (British time), while the Tokyo market, back from a holiday Monday, nudged 0.1 per cent higher.
Global investors are alert for any sign of further fallout from the sub prime mortgage crisis which could weaken the financial sector and are worried about a possible downgrade of US bond insurers, so-called monolines such as MBIA.
"There's been talk for a long time that a (credit) rate cut decision on the monoline firms was due in mid-February, and we're almost there now," said Nagayuki Yamagishi, a strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities.
"Even though people know this is likely to happen, and when, the fact is that there is still quite a lot of worry out there about the issue."
The grim stock market mood has given Japanese government bonds some support, but buyers were reluctant to jump into bonds before the March 31 fiscal year end, dealers said.
MSCI's index of Asian stocks outside Japan was up 0.5 per cent at 2:30am (British time), while the Tokyo market, back from a holiday Monday, nudged 0.1 per cent higher.