Asia: Stocks recover from Chinese GDP data, Australia's jobs data drives index up

LONDON (ShareCast) - Asian stocks improved on Thursday helped by positive Australian employment levels, after a week of disappointing data from China. The Shanghai composite index was up 2.71% following Wednesday's disappointing gross domestic product data (GDP), which led investors to hope on further economic stimulus measures.

The GDP fell to its slowest pace of growth in six years to 7% year-on-year from 7.3% the three months before, fuelling hopes in the market that policymakers will expand stimulus policies to accelerate growth.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng also rose 0.44% despite worries in the retail sector that new restrictions on the number of visits mainland residents can make to Hong Kong will put the sector under further pressure.

Capital Economics analysts said that "at first glance, it seems that limiting mainland visitors would have significant implications for Hong Kong's economy", but added that the impact on the broader economy "should be small" as the new rule affects only a minority of mainland visitors.

Japanese Nikkei 225 was slightly up 0.08% after the country overtook China as the top foreign holder of US debt. Data released on Wednesday showed Japan holds $1.2244tn of American securities, against China's $1.2237tn.

The yen recovered from the previous day's losses, with the dollar rising 0.2% to ¥119.3 at 09:38 GMT.

Meanwhile, Australia's ASX gained 0.66% following the release of positive employment data.

Unemployment fell to 6.1% in March from 6.2% the month before, beating forecasts of an increase to 6.3%.

Participation rate, the percentage of people of labour-force age that is in the labour force, came at 37,7000, against expectations of 15,000.

A measure of energy stocks rallied for an eighth day as oil traded near the highest price this year amid speculation that the US shale boom will ease.

Brent crude was trading at $62.54 per barrel while West Texas Intermediate was at $55.98 at 09:05 BST, ICE data revealed.

As a result, Australian oil company Santos gained 2.72%, while mining group BHP Billiton (NYSE: BBL - news) jumped 2.44% despite a downgrade to 'neutral' by Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) on Wednesday.

Elsewhere in China, Agricultural Bank of China (Shanghai: 601288.SS - news) gained 1.79% and Hong Kong's casino group Galaxy Entertainment rose 3.69% despite reporting a 42% drop in revenues of $4bn and earnings of $2.3bn, 40% down from the year before. The company said its business remains healthy.