Even with Japan out for a few days, we are seeing some good gains right across the Asia stockmarkets in thin conditions.
Taiwan is surging, up 5.8% as investors continued to buy into stocks, after Thursday’s Government announcements to allow China’s Qualified Domestic Intitutional Investors to apply to invest in Taiwan starting April 30. The Chinese market is also up 2.3% as steel stocks lead the rally following the the news China aims to eliminate 25 million tons of steel capacity by end of 2011.
Elsewhere the Kospi is up 1.34%, helped by KB Financial’s better than expected Q1 result.
In Australia we are seeing a move thru the previous high of 3850 on the ASX200. The miners, BHP and RIO are both up 1.8% and 4.2% respectively on the back of strong gains on base metals overnight. Banking stocks are all up over 2% with the focus on Westpac who are about to report.
