HONG KONG — Stock markets in the Asia-Pacific region began the year with gains on Wednesday, as investors took some relief from the last-minute fiscal deal reached in Washington, but wrestled with the lingering uncertainties that surround many other aspects of the U.S. budget.
Two key markets — Japan and China — remained closed for holidays on Wednesday, but elsewhere in the region, markets gained modestly during the morning, and climbed further as a key vote in Washington passed a compromise deal that staves off tax increases for most Americans.
By midafternoon, the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong was 1.9 percent higher, while the benchmark stock indices in Singapore and Australia climbed 1.3 percent.
In South Korea, the Kospi rose 1.6 percent, and in Taiwan, the Taiex rallied 1.1 percent.
With the Chinese economy regaining some momentum in recent months, Asia’s economic prospects are relatively positive, and growth in most of the region’s developing economies is expected to outpace expansion in the beleaguered West. Fresh purchasing managers’ index reports from Taiwan, South Korea and India, which gauge the health of manufacturing, underlined the improving picture on Wednesday: The readings for all three countries climbed in December. The reading for Indonesia slipped, but remained above the key level of 50, which separates expansion from contraction.
Still, analysts have long cautioned that the economic and budget travails in both the U.S. and Europe are likely to overshadow global market sentiment, and could cast a pall over Asia this year— especially highly trade-dependent countries like Taiwan and South Korea and small, open economies such as Singapore and Hong Kong.
The deal reached in Washington on Tuesday averted looming tax increases for most Americans. Combined with significant spending cuts, these would have dealt a major blow to an economy that has in any case only been growing anemically since the global financial crisis.
Market relief, however, was likely to be short-lived, analysts said, as other key issues have not been tackled.
In particular, spending cuts of $110 billion were delayed for two months, and politicians have not come up with a long-term solution that would allow the U.S. government to get past the borrowing limits reached at the end of the year — known as the debt ceiling.
Tuesday’s scaled-down deal “addressed the fiscal cliff but did nothing to address longer term fiscal health of the nation,” Aneta Markowska, an analyst at Societe Generale in New York, wrote in a research note before the final vote in the House of Representatives late Tuesday night in Washington. “This puts the U.S. rating at risk for a downgrade.”
Broader tax reform also remains on the table for 2013, and there is still “significant uncertainty about future deficits and further work will be required to stabilize the fiscal situation,” Ms. Markowska added.
“Call it breathing room, call it kicking the can down the road, call it whatever you like — come mid-February, when the decision on the legal U.S. debt limit will be needed, the fight starts afresh,” analysts at DBS in Singapore wrote in a research note. “Two more months of shenanigans and waffling / seasick markets? It certainly looks that way.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/business/global/03iht-asiamarkets03.html?partner=rss&emc=rss