Weekly review (28.10 – 01.11.2013) ASIA

Asian stocks rose for the week, despite Friday’s decline. Stocks in Asia were mostly lower Friday after an official gauge of Chinese factory activity last month showed signs of weakness. China’s manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index rose to 51.4 in October from 51.1 in September, indicating expansion and edging ahead of economist expectations. For the week the Nikkei 225 closed 0.84% higher, while Hang Seng added the most by 2.42% and the China’s Shanghai Composite rose 0.79%.

The Bank of Japan last week maintained its pledge to expand the monetary base by as much as 70 trillion yen and forecast inflation will reach its 2% target, even as some board members cautioned that price outlook was too optimistic.

A little more than a half of the 307 companies in the MSCI Asia Pacific Index that reported results this quarter and for which estimates are available have missed analyst predictions for profit. Sony sank 11%, the biggest slump since Oct. 24, 2008, as the company unexpectedly lowered its full-year profit forecast by 40% on stalling demand for TVs and digital cameras. NTT Data Corp. declined 4.8% after the network-service provider cut its full-year net-income and operating-profit forecasts. Panasonic surged 6.2%. SoftBank Corp. advanced 3.4% after quarterly profit at Japan’s No. 3 wireless carrier beat analyst estimates.

Mitsui Chemicals dropped 8.1%, its biggest decline since May 23 and the second-biggest drop on the Nikkei 225. The company slashed its net income forecast for the year by 80% to 1 billion yen, while also reducing its operating profit outlook by 11%. Ricoh declined 6.7%, the most since June, after operating profit of 45.9 billion yen missed its own forecast of 56 billion yen.

Sumitomo Heavy surged 7.6%, the biggest jump on the Nikkei 225. The company posted operating profit of 8.4 billion yen for the first half of this fiscal year, beating the 5.6 billion yen average estimate. Seiko Epson Corp. soared 25% after the printer maker more than doubled its full-year net-income outlook.

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