LONDON (ShareCast) - The Nikkei closed with modest gains on Tuesday, recovering from earlier losses, as investors mulled Moody's downgrades and negative outlooks. Moody's Investor Service downgraded the debt of Portugal, Italy, Slovenia, Slovakia and Malta by one notch while Spain's rating was cut by two notches. Outlooks on the UK, France and Austria were also cut. However shares in Tokyo shrugged off early losses after The Bank of Japan (EUREX: FMJP.EX - news) 's surprise move to boost growth. The BoJ announced it will expand its asset purchase programme by 10trn yen as the economy struggles to get recover from last year's quake, floods in Thailand, the strong yen and slowing global growth. The BOJ's lending programme remains at 35trn yen and the key interest rate at 0-0.1%. Canon (Other OTC: CAJFF.PK - news) and Toyota moved ahead after the unexpected stimulus announcement. The weaker yen also encouraged interest in Japanese exporters. Camera group Olympus (Xetra: 856840 - news) advanced 1.8% after it reported a quarterly loss on Monday. Among financials Mitsubishi UFJ Financial gained 1.3%. In Hong Kong a rally among property stocks helped boost the market. Sun Hung Kai Properties rallied 3.5% and Henderson Land surged 6.1%. Resource (Shenzhen: 399319.SZ - news) stocks were the main drag in Hong Kong with shares of Zijin Mining down 3.4% and Aluminum Corp of China off 2.5%. The benchmark Nikkei 225 (Osaka: ^N225 - news) index closed up 52 points at 9,052 and the Hang Seng (HKSE: ^HSI - news) advanced 30 points at 20,917.
Credit cards
0% balance transfers up to 24 months, 0% purchases up to 15 months - compare 200+ credit cards insta … More »Credit cards
There are no comments yet