Property powers Hong Kong

INVESTORS in

Most other Asian markets returned from the May Day holiday in more ebullient form after Wall Street's overnight gain of more than 1%, but the strength of the yen raised concerns about the outlook for exporters, and in Japan the Nikkei 225 Average slipped 15.1 points before recovering to close at 11,551.01, down 1.78 points.

Hong Kong investors scrambled into property stocks on predictions that the controversial decision to shift the government headquarters to the prime Tamar site, a former British navy shore base, will lead to a long-term shortage of prime office space, pushing up rents.

Swire Pacific was the morning's top commercial property performer, gaining more than 5%, while residential giant Sun Hung Kai added almost 2%. Japanese car makers skidded on the rising yen, and reports that US giant General Motors was pumping up market share. After hitting new highs yesterday, Honda slipped almost 2% while Nissan lost more than 3%, although trading was thin ahead of a four-day weekend starting tomorrow.

South Korean stocks staged a mild rally, although shares of Hynix Semiconductor plunged 13% following the unexpected tearing up of the agreement to sell key assets to the US Micron group. With strong government backing for the Micron deal still in place, gamblers picked up stocks of the company's creditor banks on hopes that an agreement could still be reached. Other electronics counters were boosted a 10% gain in total Korean exports last month, and the Kospi index rallied 17.52 points to 859.86.

Taiwan's chip-makers suffered fallout from the Hynix debacle, as fears grew that the company would start dumping its products on the market, further weakening the prices of D-ram chips. The Weighted Average tumbled 197.90 points to 5,867.83.

Restructuring plans at the Keppel group, Singapore's largest blue-chip, bumped its shares up almost 2%, and propelled the Straits Times index 22.3 higher to 1747.7.

Australian initially drifting sideways as investors declined to follow Wall Street's strong overnight lead. Shares in resources giant BHP Billiton fell almost 2.5% after it reported third-quarter profits down by about a third and warned the outlook was not much better. Other miners followed the lead. But late buying lifted the All Ordinaries index 2.50 points to 3,311.30.

Smaller South-East Asian markets continued to benefit from upgrading by regional analysts and bargain-hunting among the still relatively undervalued stocks. In Malaysia, the Kuala Lumpur Composite index added 1.93 points to 795.35.and Thailand's SET benchmark fell 1.56 points to 369.86. Indonesia strengthened further on a recent credit re-rating, and the Composite index added 4.980 points at 539.700.

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