Asia stocks edge up, but Aussie and oil retreat

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian stocks edged up on Monday, holding near a six-month peak struck last week and withstanding an early bout of profit-taking as investors eyed a slew of corporate earnings reports around the world this week.

The higher-yielding Australian dollar fell from a six-month high and commodity prices slipped after the initial drop in stocks, with assets that have gained the most on bets for a gradual global recovery coming under pressure.

The euro slipped to a one-month low against the dollar on uncertainty over what the European Central Bank’s next policy easing steps will be.

Over the weekend, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said that the next move would be a quarter-point trim in rates, but other officials have sent mixed signals on what unconventional measures could be adopted.

The ECB has lagged moves by the Federal Reserve, Bank of England and Bank of Japan in making asset purchases on top of cutting interest rates to near zero to revive their recession-hit economies.

Jackie Chan’s China comments prompt backlash

HONG KONG – Action star Jackie Chan’s comments wondering whether Chinese people “need to be controlled” have drawn sharp rebuke in his native Hong Kong and in Taiwan.

Chan told a business forum in the southern Chinese province of Hainan that a free society may not be beneficial for China’s authoritarian mainland.

“I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not,” Chan said Saturday. “I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we’re not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want.”

He went on to say that freedoms in Hong Kong and Taiwan made those societies “chaotic.”

Chan’s comments drew applause from a predominantly Chinese audience of business leaders, but did not sit well with lawmakers in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

China GDP slowest on record

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s economy slowed in the first quarter to its weakest pace on record, but an improvement in data for March offered tentative signs that the worst may be over for the world’s third-largest economy.

Annual economic growth slowed to 6.1 percent from 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, slightly missing economists’ forecasts of a 6.3 percent rise and marking the weakest expansion since quarterly records began in 1992. (For a graphic, click on: http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/apr09/CN_GDP0409.jpg)

Growth was dragged down largely by a sharp fall in exports, but a surge in lending in the first quarter spurred by the government’s 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus package, helped cushion the blow.

“The overall national economy showed positive changes, with better performance than expected,” Li Xiaochao, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, said at a news conference on Thursday.

Asia stocks retreat, China hopes limit drop

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian stocks pulled back from six-month highs on Wednesday but held up after the drop on Wall Street overnight, with hopes for more Chinese stimulus spending helping offset reports of weak first-quarter growth.

Investors were cashing in on gains after many equity markets have jumped between 20 percent and 30 percent since early March, with Asian markets leading the charge higher as investors counted on China helping drive a regional growth pick-up, analysts said.

Higher-yielding currencies such as the Australian dollar relinquished some of their hefty gains in the past month after data showing a surprisingly big drop in U.S. retail sales last month highlighted the bumpy road to recovery in the recession-hit global economy.

But gains in safe-have government bonds were limited as investors fret about the wave of coming supply to fund government spending aimed at reviving growth, as well as signs that Asian central banks may have finished with their aggressive rate cuts.

Asian shares advance despite plenty of fears

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian shares rose to a six-month high on Tuesday after Goldman Sachs’ stronger-than-expected profit signaled the worst could be behind for U.S. banks, emboldening investors to chase after riskier assets.

Asian credit markets continued to improve, while the yen, a currency that benefits during fearful times, fell to a six-month low against the Australian dollar.

However, there are also plenty of doubts about how much longer the rally in Asian stock markets can be sustained given that some analysts believe the full brunt of the deep global recession has yet to be reflected.

Singapore eased monetary policy to effectively devalue its currency after posting on Tuesday its worst quarterly economic contraction ever, while a forecast for weaker demand for oil by the International Energy Agency sent crudes tumbling to below $50 a barrel.

Chinese premier says economy improving

BEIJING — Premier Wen Jiabao said China’s economy was showing “positive changes” but called for more efforts to combat the impact of the global financial crisis, state media reported Sunday.

The economy showed “better than expected positive changes in the first quarter” due to Beijing’s huge stimulus, Mr. Wen said on the sidelines of a planned Asian summit in Thailand, the Xinhua News Agency, state radio and other outlets reported.

Citing improved investment, consumption and trade figures, Mr. Wen said some segments of the economy “are in a process of gradual recovery,” Xinhua said. That data were reported earlier, and the premier gave no forecast of first-quarter economic growth, which China is due to report in the next few days.

China lending, money supply growth hit record highs

BEIJING — China’s new lending and money supply growth both surged to record highs in March, as banks continued their explosive credit expansion in support of the government’s efforts to rejuvenate the economy.

Banks extended 1.89 trillion yuan ($276.6-billion U.S.) in local currency-denominated loans in March, bringing the total for the first quarter to 4.58 trillion yuan – nearing the government’s full-year target of at least 5 trillion yuan.

That helped lift annual growth in the broad M2 measure of money supply to a record 25.5 per cent in March, up from 20.5 per cent in February and easily exceeding economists’ expectations of a 21.3 per cent rise.

Liquidity surged despite the smallest quarterly rise in the country’s foreign exchange reserves since the second quarter of 2001, reflecting slowing inflows through the trade surplus and foreign investment.

China’s trade decline eases in March

BEIJING — The plunge in Chinese exports that has wiped out millions of jobs eased in March amid signs the collapse in global demand might be bottoming out.

Exports fell 17 per cent in March from a year earlier, the fifth straight monthly decline but less severe than February’s 25.7 plunge, the sharpest in a decade, the customs agency reported Friday. It said trade “showed clear signs of improvement.”

“It says we’re no longer in freefall,” said economist David Cohen of Action Economics in Singapore. “It’s still down sharply year-on-year. But it’s an optimistic sign for the Chinese economy as well as the whole world.”

Imports fell by 25.7 per cent, widening the Chinese trade surplus to $18.6-billion (U.S.) from February’s $4.8-billion gap.

China’s runaway steel train

FENGRUN, CHINA and TORONTO — Yu Jianshui fidgets in his big leather chair as he chain-smokes his way through an interview. Times are tough at the Tangshan Fengrun Zhengda Iron and Steel Co. Ltd.

With China suffering its sharpest economic slowdown in decades, Mr. Yu, the firm’s general manager, complains that he is getting fewer and fewer orders for his main product, huge bars of raw steel known as billets. In his 23 years in steel, “this is the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Yet under the corrugated metal roofs of his steel mill, blast furnaces still blast and two assembly lines still roll out 3,000 tonnes of steel a day.

It is the same story elsewhere in Fengrun, a gritty steel town where the red flag of the People’s Republic flies from giant-like loading derricks. After shutting briefly when steel prices dipped last fall, most of Fengrun’s more than 100 mills have come back to life to exploit a price uptick this winter, churning out countless tonnes of pipe, girders, rolled steel and heavy cable.

Disney to launch ad-supported channels on YouTube

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Walt Disney and Google’s YouTube said on Monday they have reached a pact to offer sports highlights, clips of television shows and other short-form content on the hugely popular video-sharing site.

The deal will see videos from sports network ESPN from April and the Disney/ABC Television networks such as ABC Entertainment and SoapNet become available on YouTube from May. Disney Media Networks will have the option to sell its own advertising inventory within those channels.

While the deal does not entail full-length programing, analysts said it represents an important validation for YouTube as it seeks to present itself as an outlet for professionally-made, premium video content.

“The important thing is we got ABC up on the platform, it remains to be seen how that will grow,” said YouTube head of content partnerships Jordan Hoffner.

Hoffner said the deal was the product of several months of work and adds to the comprehensiveness of YouTube’s library of professional video content which includes content from CBS Corp, the Food Network and Discover Communications Inc’s the Discovery Channel, among others.