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Tokyo gains but Korea down
TOKYO, Japan -- Asian markets are mixed heading into Thursday afternoon, with Tokyo cheered by Wall Street's modest rise but South Korea off sharply on corporate jitters. Any increases in the region are slight at best, with Taiwan showing the strongest rise of about 0.9 percent. Singapore is up about 0.3 percent. Australia and Hong Kong are down, though not as sharply as South Korea's 1.4 percent fall. Japan's Nikkei 225 average is up 0.25 percent to 7962.85 at the midday break, on hopes that the government will unveil new measures to support the market. The broader Topix index is up 0.28 percent at 784.53. According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily, the government will unveil a six-point plan later Thursday to support stock prices, including a call on the central Bank of Japan to buy more shares held by banks. The BOJ has already said it will buy two trillion yen ($17 billion) of stocks held by Japanese banks to help trim their massive shareholdings and reduce their vulnerability to market swings. The banks are sharing in Thursday's gains, with Mizuho Financial Group up 4.72 percent to 111,000 yen on the first day of trading in its new listing. Mizuho has canceled a planned overseas share sale and has turned instead to domestic investors for 1.1 trillion yen ($9.4 billion) of funding.
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group is up 4.07 percent to 230,000 yen after touching a lifetime low of 206,000 yen during Wednesday trade. UFJ Holdings and MTFG are both up about 1.5 percent. The market's biggest stock, NTT DoCoMo, is unchanged at 215,000 yen. Some of the country's biggest exporters, including consumer electronics leader Sony and automakers Toyota, Nissan and Honda, are slightly lower. The gains in Tokyo follow a relatively stronger day on Wall Street Wednesday, where the Dow Jones industrial average put on 0.37 percent to 7552.07 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 0.61 percent to 1279.24. (Full story) But the story was different in Europe, where markets again finished at fresh six-year lows. ( Full story) In South Korea on Thursday, the woes of the big conglomerates continue to be a drag on the Kospi, which is down 1.4 percent to 523.6 near midday. Despite its links to the troubled SK Group, SK Telecom is showing some resilience, up 4.56 percent to 149,000 won after Tuesday's 12 percent fall. Hyundai Motor and steelmaker Posco are also up, but the market's biggest stock, Samsung Electronics, is down 0.86 percent to 287,500 won. In Taiwan, the Taiex is up 0.9 percent to 4368.40, with chip foundry TSMC 1.16 percent higher to T$43.50. Rival UMC is unchanged at T$19.00. Most moves among tech and industrial stocks are muted. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index is 0.48 percent lower at 8832.26. HSBC and other big banks are marginally lower, as are the big telecoms companies. PCCW is down just over 1 percent to HK$4.675. Citic Pacific is the biggest blue-chip gainer, up 4.14 percent to HK$16.35. In Australia, the S&P/ASX200 is off 46 percent to 2706.1 in early afternoon trading, again hovering near four-year lows. Market heavyweight News Corporation is up 2.31 percent to A$9.74, reflecting the gains on U.S. markets. Mining giant BHP Billiton is down 1.6 percent to A$8.63 and most of the big banks are also lower. But insurer and funds manager AMP is continuing to recover from its record low of A$5.90 on Tuesday, and is up 3.73 percent to A$6.39. Across the Tasman, New Zealand's NZSE Top 50 index is down 0.9 percent to 1876.72. Reuters contributed to this report.
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