Asian Markets Gain; Tech Stocks Lead Euro Markets Higher
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, on the heels of that big rise here in the U.S. yesterday, the Asian markets gained overnight. The Fed's quarter-point rate hike on Tuesday surprised nobody, really, and many investors are now betting that the Fed is nearing the end of its sequence of increases.</s>DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: Lorraine Hahn wraps up the day in Asian markets from our studios in Hong Kong. Hello, Lorraine.</s>LORRAINE HAHN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you very much. As you're right, Wall Street gains cheered Asia on today. In Japan, we saw some selling in the high-tech issues, as well as the Internet stocks; for example, Softbank saw its share price drop 10 percent. Traders say that the upside will be limited in Japan ahead of the March 31st year-end book closing. The news in Japan, DaimlerChrysler and Mitsubishi nearing a deal for the German-U.S. automaker to buy an estimated 33-percent stake in Mitsubishi, which is struggling under $16 billion of debt. DaimlerChrysler, of course, will get a much-needed foothold here in Asia. Still, Mitsubishi stock fell 1 1/4 percent today. Apparently, the market has sort of priced in any such alliance. Now, drug firm Sankyo saw its share price drop six percent today after U.S. drug maker Warner-Lambert pulled its diabetes drug Rezulin from the shelves. Now, Sankyo saying that it's still going to sell Rezulin, at least in Japan. Overall, the Nikkei up 2 1/3 percent. Here in Hong Kong, the interest-rate-sensitive index powered ahead despite a good chance come Friday we will have high interest rates, much like the United States. The Hang Seng index rose two percent. Traditional old-economy stocks are leading the way up today, HSBC gaining 2 1/4 percent, Hutchison Whampoa up two percent. Finally, in Korea, two computer memory-chip makers saw their stock prices soar today as investors consider them undervalued compared to their rivals, and they were Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Electronics. Also, the government announcing GDP figures for 1999 grew at 10.7 percent; that is higher than the earlier forecast of 10.2 percent. And the Kospi picking up 2 1/4 percent on the day. That's a quick check for Asia, back to you in New York.</s>MARCHINI: All right, Lorraine, thank you so much. Tech stocks like Nokia are leading European markets higher this morning, the lone exception being London.</s>HAFFENREFFER: It is time now for our first visit of the day to London, where Todd Benjamin is standing by with this update. Good morning, Todd.</s>TODD BENJAMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Dave and Deb. That's right, all the major markets are higher today following Wall Street's sizable gains, with the exception of London. It was higher in the early go, but it's fallen off now; it's now down half percent perhaps on some worries that interest rates could head higher here, either because the underlying economy has strength or perhaps the U.K. budget, which was just announced yesterday, some folks are worried that perhaps that could also lead the Bank of England maybe to raise rates. But right now, as you said, London's down half a percent. The Dax is up three-quarters of one percent. Now, Paris is up one percent, and Zurich is up just over a half of one percent. Currency markets really dull this morning: The dollar is little change in the Japanese currency; the euro is basically unchanged against the greenback; the pound is slipping this morning, it's off a third of a cent against the dollar. Now you mentioned technology. Of course, the Nasdaq's big gain yesterday spilling over to Europe today. The Noyer (ph) market, which is Germany's equivalent of their Nasdaq, it's up some three percent. To give you a flavor of how stocks are doing here on an individual basis, for instance, SAP, the big software company which also trading U.S., it's up better than 3 1/2 percent; Lagardere in France, which is media to missiles, is up almost 3 1/2 percent; Oxford Gliko (ph) Sciences, this is a biotech that just got rolled yesterday after the big sell-off in the U.S., it's up today some 16 percent after it revealed it had some 800 patent applications and that some directors were buying the stock. In terms of the telecoms, Vodafone's down just over one percent, British Telecom is flat, but France Telecom is up three percent; of course, all those telecoms trade in the U.S. Oil in the early go, first trade out of London was at $25.45 a barrel; that is down some 27 cents from its previous close. And of course, the latest numbers came out from the American Petroleum Institute and they were surprised, a pleasant surprise for those wanting to see lower oil prices. The market was expecting an increase of just a million barrels in crude stocks, but they rose by a better- than four-million barrels, and therefore, oil prices are heading down this morning. Back to you in New York.</s>MARCHINI: Really briefly, Todd, Chase was up in after-hours trading on a stock split and a dividend hike. Would -- did you see any price action in it this morning?</s>BENJAMIN: Well, you know, it was higher slightly in Frankfurt, but I got to tell you, I've called Instinet twice now, and there's still no price action. But a lot of these U.S. stocks kick in about a half-hour from now, so I'll give them another call, and if we get some price action on it I'll tell you what it is in the next update about a half-hour from now.</s>MARCHINI: Terrific. Thanks, Todd. Search CNN.com CNNSI.com CNNmoney.com The Web