Asia advancing; Hong Kong under pressure from HSBC (MarketWatch) (02-03-2010)

SINGAPORE (MarketWatch) -- Asian shares finished mostly higher Tuesday, with technology stocks gaining ground around the region, while Hong Kong lost ground after disappointing earnings results from HSBC.

Australian shares were also struggling to make much headway with the fourth interest rate hike in five meetings by the nation's central bank doing little to inspire buyers.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index shed 0.7% and the Shanghai Composite lost 0.2%, taking shares in Japan off highs, with the Nikkei 225 down 0.1%. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.1% and South Korea's Kospi Composite rose 1.1%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down five points in screen trade.

Regional technology stocks were tracking their U.S. counterparts' gains Monday, after flash data storage products maker SanDisk boosted its first quarter guidance, and as the Semiconductor Industry Association said January global semiconductor sales rose 47% from a year earlier.

In Tokyo, Toshiba added 1.6% and Advantest tacked on 1.7%, while in Seoul, Samsung Electronics advanced 3.4% and Hynix Semiconductor gained 2.6%.

Taiwan's Compal Electronics rose 1.5% after the company announced better-than-expected results, with fourth-quarter net profit nearly tripling from a year earlier to a record high of NT$8.03 billion.

HSBC dented the Hong Kong market, dropping 6.5% after reporting net profit of $5.83 billion for 2009, up from $5.73 billion in 2008, but below the $6.4 billion analysts expected, as bad-debt charges continued to rise.

Australia's shares were nearly flat after the Reserve Bank of Australia raised its cash rate another quarter of a percentage point to 4.00%, in a move expected by most economists.

Japanese government bonds retraced earlier losses after Tokyo shares reversed gains. Lead March JGB futures were up 0.05 at 139.82 points, and the 10-year cash yield was down 0.5 basis point at 1.300%.

Source: MarketWatch