TOKYO (AFP) – Asian stock markets broadly rose Tuesday in see-saw trading despite fears about the state of China’s economy, a key driver of global growth.
Another slump in oil prices also curbed investors’ enthusiasm in low-volume trading as markets wind down in the last week of the year.
Analysts warned that sliding crude prices, which had enjoyed a brief push upward last week, would drag on Asia-Pacific markets.
“Whenever the weakness in oil regains market attention, it weighs on sentiment,” Toshihiko Matsuno, chief strategist at SMBC Friend Securities in Tokyo, told Bloomberg News.
“Movement in Chinese shares will continue to have an effect on other markets.”
However, mainland Chinese shares climbed in late afternoon trading, while Tokyo and Sydney cast off early losses to end higher, partly lifted by bargain buying.
Shanghai was up 0.31 per cent and Shenzhen added 0.24 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index had risen 0.34 per cent Tuesday afternoon.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 closed 0.58 per cent higher on bargain-hunting after closing flat at the lunch break.
Seoul ended 0.11 per cent higher and Singapore added 0.41 per cent in afternoon trade. Taiwan ended down 0.77 per cent.
Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX200 shrugged off early losses as investors bought banks and consumer stocks, offsetting falls in major miners, to end up 1.15 per cent.
In Wellington, the NZX-50 index rose 1.07 per cent. Earlier in the day, sentiment drooped in the wake of disappointing industrial profit data that pointed to weakness in China’s economy.
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