Buyers move in to restore good times

ALL the news was good in Asian markets as share prices continued to recover from the battering they took earlier in the week from the WorldCom accounting scandal.

Buyers who reckoned that Wednesday's knee-jerk reaction to the latest US accounting debacle was overdone and had opened up a rare window of opportunity were supported by strong upbeat economic data from the US and Japan.

Tokyo stocks, which were hammered 4% on WorldCom, continued a recovery that saw the Nikkei 225 Average running out the week with a 2% gain despite heavy net selling by foreign institutions. Today it jumped more than 3.5% to 10,621.84, up 360.24.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index just about broke even on the week, but a more modest rally in South Korean stocks, which slumped more than 7% on Wednesday, left the Kospi down 5%.

The markets were cheered by the 6.1% growth in the US economy in the first quarter, which outpaced analysts' expectations and revived, once again, the prospects of the region's major exporters. The overnight jump of 1.6% by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq's 2.1% climb reinforced optimism that a bottom could be building under global stocks.

Good news about industrial production outweighed bad news about unemployment and domestic spending in Japan. Output in May climbed 3.9%, a full percentage point above consensus forecasts, as exports raced ahead, but other less positive data may give rise to second thoughts about the strength of Japanese recovery. The number of jobless in May was a near-record 5.4%, reflecting de-manning in the manufacturing industry, while deflation continued to blight the country and consumer prices dipped 0.8% in May

Investors ignored the grey clouds and looked at the prospects of big exports. This pushed up shares of consumer electronics giant Sony by more than 2% while Honda Motor added almost 3%.

After seeing month lows on Wednesday, which had chartists looking at support levels, a more buoyant mood had them searching for resistance points to a sustained upward move as the Hang Seng added 138.70 to 10,656.79. Technology and telecommunications stocks led the rally. China Mobile was lifted by Nasdaq's rally and also benefited from a coming increased weighting in the Hang Seng.

The rally in the oversold South Korean market took the Kospi up 32.36 to 742.79 as technology stocks rebounded and Taiwan's semiconductor makers responded well to a bullish report on the sector from brokers Lehman Brothers. The Weighted Average gained 107.02 to 5178.78. Singapore's Straits Times index benefited from Nasdaq's strength, adding 29.50 to 1561.18.

Sydney's response to New York's performance was a subdued gain of 9.4 to 3170.3 by the All Ordinaries index. News Corporation slipped 1% on concerns about US advertising revenue, while resources stocks ran into some light selling.

Malaysian shares continued to benefit from the prospects of a calm political handover, and the Kuala Lumpur Composite index jumped 15.43 to 727. Thailand's SET index rallied 6.64 points to 389.66, while Indonesia's Jakarta Composite rose 1.51 to 508.37.

Prices and indices in this section are supplied from various sources and calculated at different times and may not always match those listed on the site.