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Asian stocks tread water
(CNN) -- Asian stocks are treading water at midday Thursday, with the Nikkei flat after modest gains on Wall Street. South Korea is doing best with a gain of about 0.7 percent. Hong Kong and Singapore are in the red, while there are slight rises for Australia and Taiwan. The Nikkei 225 is virtually unchanged at the end of the morning's trade, down 0.04 percent to 10,734.59. That comes after it posted a 1.69 percent gain Wednesday that was its fourth straight winning session. The broader capital-weighted Topix index is off just 0.01 percent to 1054.24. The dollar is trading at 108.07 yen in Tokyo, near a three-year low against the Japanese currency. It touched 107.83 yen on Wednesday. Big bank UFJ and other banks are down on reports of another bailout, while tech shares are being sold after Wednesday's hefty gains. In Tokyo, consumer electronics leader Sony is down 1.5 percent to 3850 yen, giving back some of the gains made earlier this week when it unveiled its three-year turnaround plan. Hitachi and Fujitsu, which both rose about 7 percent Wednesday on release of their earnings, are down 4.2 percent and 0.4 percent respectively. Toshiba is 2.2 percent lower to 454 yen. One tech-related stock to gain is Canon, up 1.3 percent to 5470 yen, ahead of earnings. Among carmakers, Nissan is 3.25 percent ahead to 1270 yen and Honda is up 1.4 percent to 4350 yen. But Toyota is down about 1 percent. Banking leader Mizuho is up slightly, as is SMFG. But UFJ is down 1.2 percent to 491,000 yen after a report it is planning plan to support the rehabilitation of homebuilder Misawa Homes through a 100 billion yen ($924 million) private placement of preferred shares. The market's biggest stock, mobile phone giant NTT DoCoMo, is off 1.66 percent to 237,000 yen ahead of earnings. Rival KDDI, which also reports later Thursday, is up 0.48 percent to 625,000 yen. In Seoul, the Kospi is up 0.72 percent to 785.17, with a 2 percent gain for big exporter Hyundai Motor. Samsung Electronics is up 0.5 percent to 469,500 won, close to a record high touched Wednesday. SK Telecom is 0.7 percent higher, but rival KT is down 0.2 percent. In Australia, the S&P/ASX200 is up 0.13 percent to 3267.7. News Corp and Qantas are up 0.3 percent each, while BHP Billiton is 1.4 percent ahead to A$11.28. Telstra is down 0.8 percent to A$4.74 after the upper-house Senate rejected government legislation that would lead to the telco's full privatization. Westpac Bank is flat at A$16.30 after posting full year earnings before one-off items of A$2.27 billion. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index is down 1.15 percent at 11,991.97 after posting a 26-month high Wednesday. Leading bank HSBC is up 0.44 percent to HK$114.50. Taiwan's Taiex is up 0.13 percent to 6103.75, with slight falls for market heavyweight TSMC and rival chip foundry UMC. In Singapore, the Straits Times index is down a third of a percent to 1716.36. Singapore Airlines, which posted first-half results late Wednesday, is up 3.5 percent to S$11.70. U.S. markets finished slightly higher on Wednesday, with the Dow industrials up 0.27 percent to 9774.53 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq up 0.22 percent to 1936.56. (Full story)
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