Asia stocks firm on S&P warning; Nikkei gains 0.89%
Published Dec 06, 2011 10:58PM ET
During mid-day Asian trading, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.92%, Australia's S&P/ASX200 shot up 0.84%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index rose 0.89%.
On Monday, &P warned it had put sovereign ratings for 15 European nations under review for downgrade on sentiment that policy makers need to pick up the pace and craft a solution to end the debt crisis and address fiscal imbalance among member nations.
&P added warnings applied to top-ranked Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Luxembourg, all of whom could lose their coveted AAA ratings.
Furthermore, &P added it may downgrade the European Financial Stability Facility, a key emergency fund used to assist euro zone countries in trouble.
Those warnings came days before a Friday summit of European financial leaders who will convene to mull unpopular decisions to end the crisis, including centralizing fiscal policies and punishing member nations who run deficits beyond set limits.
Asia's leading stocks were up in positive territory, including China Life, which was up 3.50%, Bank of China, up 2.17%, while in Australia, retail and financial stocks firmed.
Woolworth's was up 1.67% while Telstra was up 1.25% and ANZ Banking Group climbed 1.19%.
In Australia, third-quarter gross domestic product rates grew by 1% from the second quarter, slightly below a forecasts for 1.2% expansion, but up 2.5% on year.
European stocks pushed higher as markets await concrete decisions from policy makers Friday concerning on how to steer the economy out of the debt crisis.
France’s CAC 40 futures were up 0.45%, the FTSE 100 futures rose 0.29%, while Germany's DAX futures were up 0.35%.
Markets were expected to pay attention to Japanese balance of payments data due out later Wednesday as well a decision from the Bank of Korea Monetary Policy Committee on where to set the benchmark lending rate or leave it unchanged at 3.25%.
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Written By: Investing.com
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