Asia stocks notch gains, Hong Kong leads

Asia stocks rose Thursday, as investors considered deal news, earnings and some mixed signals on the health of the Japanese economy.

Hong Kong stocks climbed as trading resumed for the first time this week after the Chinese New Year holidays, with the Hang Seng Index  slithering up 1% to start the Year of the Snake on an upbeat note.

Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average  rose 0.9%, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index  moved up 0.7%, and South Korea’s Kospi  added 0.2%. Mainland Chinese markets remained closed for the week.

Asia stock markets shrugged off an uncertain lead from the U.S., where 2 out of 3 major benchmarks ended with fractional gains Wednesday.

But U.S. shares have been on a rising trajectory lately and Kim Eng Securities head of sales trading Andrew Sullivan said that Hong Kong investors, at least, were playing catch-up on Thursday after the holiday.

He attributed more than 100 points of the Hang Seng’s 214.56 point advance on Thursday, to that theme.

Banks and property developers were notably higher, with heavyweight HSBC Holdings PLC    up 2%, and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.   higher by 2.1%.

China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd.    rose 2.7%, and China Resources Land Ltd.   surged 4.9%.

Deal news was also lending a hand in Hong Kong, with energy major Cnooc Ltd.   climbing 1.9% after it received approval from U.S. regulators for its $15 billion acquisition of Canada’s Nexen Inc. .

In other M&A-related moves, Australia’s Alumina Ltd.   jumped 9.6% in Sydney after Citic Resources Ltd.   announced it will take a 13% stake in the firm for 452 million Australian dollars ($468 million). Shares of Citic Resources gained 1.7% in Hong Kong.

Also helping the Australian share market extend near-four-and-a-half-year highs Thursday, Rio Tinto Ltd.   moved up 2.2% ahead of its earnings due later in the day, while rival miner BHP Billiton Ltd.    gained 2.6%.

Tokyo eyes earnings, Bank of Japan

Earnings gave some impetus to the Tokyo market, with brewer Asahi Group Holdings Ltd.    jumping 7.6% after posting a record fiscal-year profit, and Yokohama Rubber Co.    surging 13.3% after reporting its fiscal-year net profit more than doubled to ¥32.6 billion.

Japan’s economy, meanwhile, remained in recessionary doldrums during the last quarter of 2012, data out Thursday showed. The country chalked up a third straight quarter of contraction, with gross domestic product shrinking 0.1%, missing economist forecasts for a 0.1% rise.

Sullivan at Kim Eng Securities said that last year’s dispute between China and Japan over a group of islands in the East China Sea — which led to the boycotting of some Japanese products by Chinese consumers — was still working its way through the Japanese economy.

Additionally, “it will take some time for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policies to have an impact,” he said. Abe has put the Bank of Japan under pressure to introduce fresh monetary policies to boost the economy and curb deflation.

GDP is a lagging indicator, however, and the Bank of Japan offered a more upbeat assessment of the Japanese economy after its monthly policy meeting Thursday. The bank upgraded its economic assessment for February to say that the economy appears to have stopped weakening.

As expected, the Bank of Japan also kept its overnight call rate unchanged at a ultra-low level and stuck to its plan to make ¥101 trillion yen of asset purchases by the end of the year.

After the meeting, the dollar reached 93.48 yen, little changed from the ¥93.42 recorded in late North American trading on Wednesday.

In South Korean trading, Kia Motors Corp.    climbed 0.4%, but affiliate Hyundai Motor Co.    gave up early gains to trade down 0.2%.

Energy-sector firms advanced, however, with S-Oil Corp.   up 3.3% and Hankook Shell Oil Co.   jumping 8.1%.

 Marketwatch