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StreetAccount Summary - Asian Market Recap: Nikkei (0.08%), Hang Seng (0.58%), Shanghai Composite (0.39%) as of 04:10 ET

Mar 13 ,2025

• Synopsis:

  • Asia equities ended mostly lower Thursday. Taiwan saw more losses as its chip stocks lost further ground, South Korea stayed near the flatline just as a shareholder reform bill was passed by the country's parliament. Losses in Greater China with the Hang Seng recovering slightly into the close. More losses for Australia and India, Southeast Asia mostly lower. Japan's main boards finishing near the flatline. US futures lower, Europe opened with small losses. US dollar a little higher, yen strengthened to two-month highs post more Ueda comments, AUD and NZD weaker again. Treasury yields mixed, JGB 10Y yields hovered near 2008 highs. Crude oil slightly higher, precious metals mixed, base metals lower. Cryptocurrencies down.

  • Asia equities tilted to the downside once again amid nervous trading with every small rally seemingly quickly sold down. US futures, which had opened higher in Asia trade, also turned lower over the day as worries over economic growth returned following yesterday's rally. Today's losses also likely to be extending the foreign investor exodus, which has seen net FII selling expand from India to now include South Korea and Taiwan according to local agency data. A separate report from Goldman Sachs today suggested hedge funds were unwinding positions in Asia, including Japan and China.

  • In other developments, focus remained on tariffs, with the latest being Trump's promise of retaliatory action against the EU after it imposed tariffs worth €26B on US goods Wednesday. Nothing specific on China or other Asia nations in past 24 hours. Elsewhere, the BOJ noted several reasons not to intervene in the bond market despite JGB yields reaching multi-year highs. South Korea parliament voted to expand corporate boards fiduciary standard, a law that could effectively forcing the country's large chaebols to answer to shareholders if passed by acting President Choi.

  • Alimentation Couche-Tard ruled out a hostile takeover of Seven & i (3382.HK) and said it was confident its proposal was the most attractive for its customers and shareholders. Alibaba (9988.HK) unveiled a new AI model that reads emotions to rival OpenAI. An activist investor group, ACCR, is to oppose the election of directors at Woodside Energy (WDS.AU) upcoming AGM citing company failures in managing climate risks and poor returns.

• Digest:

  • BOJ places higher bar for JGB intervention:

    • Bloomberg sources indicated BOJ officials see several reasons against JGB market intervention even with yields at post-2008 highs, elaborating on the thinking behind Governor Ueda's recent laissez-faire remarks. Central bank officials said to be determined not to intervene unless extreme moves occur out of concerns that would create threshold for traders that would impede market functioning. Also, fixed-rate operations viewed as a last resort given the strong messaging on yield levels. BOJ wants the market to adjust to the post-YCC environment and so far see dynamics as healthy. Recent JGB moves also not seen as abnormal relative to global markets. Article noted such views suggest the bar for intervention has increased despite BOJ maintaining its official stance that they are prepared to respond to disorderly moves. If intervention is deemed warranted, sources said BOJ could express heightened sense of urgency through different means before taking direct action, such as changing the tone of Ueda's comments or tweaking monthly JGB purchase plans.

  • South Korea parliament passes law that may lead to chaebol reform:

    • South Korea lawmakers voted Thursday to expand corporate boards 'fiduciary duty standard' in move that may force chaebol groups to be more accountable to shareholders. Legislation rewrites commercial code to include boards' fiduciary duties to shareholders and company, not just company per se (Yonhap). Legislation faces uncertain future as sponsored by opposition-controlled parliament, ruling party has asked acting President Choi to use veto as it could create uncertainty in business, lead to increased legal costs, to shareholders casting dissenting votes. President has 15 days to decide. Legislation part of corporate governance program lobbied for by investors, activists who say chaebols' links to founding families deters foreign investors, and leads to lower stock valuations or "Korea discount" (Bloomberg). Federation of Korean Industries opposes bill but several lawmakers said it will lead to a halt in attacks by activist funds, boost stock prices.

  • Hang Seng outperforms during Trump's first 50 days in office whereas global funds exit Asian peers:

    • Hang Seng Index has led global gains, up nearly 20%, since Trump's inauguration, versus more than 7% slump in S&P 500. Bloomberg noted divergence between the two indexes has become most extreme in more than two decades in 90-day correlation measure. Global investors and sell-side firms turn more bullish toward China amid country's tech advance in AI, boosted by emergence of DeepSeek, which reshaped narrative of "China is uninvestable", whereas Trump administration's unpredictable policy-making is undermining confidence in US economy. Meanwhile mainland Chinese investors also pouring funds into Hong Kong with southbound flows hitting record high of HK$29.6B ($3.8B) Monday. In contrast, foreign investors reduced holdings of Taiwanese shares for past 12 session through Wednesday, shedding net NT$391B ($11.9B) with 155M shares of TSMC (2330.TT) dumped (Bloomberg) and BOK data showed foreign investors remained net sellers ($1.81B) of Korean stocks for seventh consecutive month in February (Yonhap). Foreign investors have also offloaded more than $15B worth of Indian stocks YTD, marking one of sharpest sell-offs in recent years (CNBCTV18).

  • Japan wage negotiations yield solid increases ahead of official tallies tomorrow:

    • Press reported solid outcomes from latest wage talks ahead of tomorrow's preliminary official tallies from Rengo (Nikkei, Reuters). Some 60% of major manufacturers fully met labor union demands and many firms have awarded pay raises above the Rengo mission statement of at least 5%. Metal workers union said all results from the 51 groups collated saw awards equating to base increases and 60% were at or above union targets. Toyota (7203.JP) awarded full targets on wages and bonuses for the fifth straight year with levels at a record. Hitachi (6501.JP) raise also met union demands and were a record high. While noting that record corporate profits means companies have the capacity to increase wages, a separate Nikkei piece discussed the high bar for nominal wage growth given last year's increases failed to result in a meaningful breakout in real wages. Core inflation has accelerated for the past three months, while surging food prices have increased attention on the overall CPI which topped 4% for the first time in two years. Recalled BOJ has revised up inflation forecasts but still sees risks skewed to the upside. Main risk lies in small firms lacking financial strength.

  • India inflation dips below 4% to boost hopes of another RBI rate cut:

    • India's February CPI fell to seven-month low 3.6%, beating market expectations of 4.1% and boosting hopes RBI's MPC will cut rates again when it meets on 7-Apr. Core inflation rose to 4.0% from 3.9%. Food inflation fell to 3.7% from almost 6% in January as vegetables prices fell, while cereals and meat price inflation cooled. On the negative side, edible oil prices spiked by more than 16%, partly result of weak rupee. Rural food inflation at 4.1% and urban food inflation at 3.2% were both substantially below January's print. Economists said combination of comfort with inflation and below potential economic growth support possibility of 25 bp rate cut next month, especially as inflation likely to remain low in March (BusinessStandard). Separate data late Wednesday showed January industrial production grew 5.0% from 3.5% in December easily beating consensus on 3.5%, and contrasting January's PMI reading which saw growth at 14-month low (Reuters).

  • Notable Gainers:

    • +19% 006260.KS (LS Corp): parent company of Taihan Electric Wire reportedly accumulates shares raising its stake to less than 5%

    • +3.4% C09.SP (City Developments): notes settlement of differences among board members; discontinues court proceedings

    • +1.0% 1910.HK (Samsonite Group): reports FY with adjusted net income ahead of StreetAccount estimates

    • +0.2% 7974.JP (Nintendo): Nintendo, Fuji Television reportedly to receive ¥570B from Niantic's sale of game business to Scopely

  • Notable Decliners:

    • -65.8% 2500.HK (Venus Medtech (Hangzhou)): fulfills HKEX resumption guidance; resumes trading

    • -12.3% 2362.HK (Jinchuan Group International Resources): reports top-up placement of 630.0M shares at HK$0.628/sh through CICC

    • -9.1% 6088.HK (FIT Hon Teng): reports FY earnings with revenue below FactSet estimates

    • -6.2% 2354.TT (Foxconn Technology): reports FY EPS NT$2.53; StreetAccount notes the year-ago figure was NT$3.01

    • -4.7% 4.HK (The Wharf (Holdings)): reports FY results with underlying net income and revenue below StreetAccount estimates

• Data:

  • Economic:

    • No economic data today

  • Markets:

    • Nikkei: (29.06) or (0.08%) to 36790.03

    • Hang Seng: (137.66) or (0.58%) to 23462.65

    • Shanghai Composite: (13.20) or (0.39%) to 3358.73

    • Shenzhen Composite: (23.43) or (1.12%) to 2066.95

    • ASX200: (37.10) or (0.48%) to 7749.10

    • KOSPI: (1.18) or (0.05%) to 2573.64

    • SENSEX: (43.23) or (0.06%) to 73986.53

  • Currencies:

    • $-¥: (0.50) or (0.34%) to 147.7500

    • $-KRW: +2.68 or +0.18% to 1453.6400

    • A$-$: (0.00) or (0.40%) to 0.6296

    • $-INR: (0.12) or (0.14%) to 87.0325

    • $-CNY: +0.00 or +0.04% to 7.2407