Business | Markets
World stock markets gain ahead of G20 summit
Asian and European markets recover from losses as world leaders gather for a meeting on the global financial crisis.
- Agencies
- Published: 09:48 November 14, 2008
- Image Credit: Gulf News Archive
- The advance across most of Asia on Friday followed a volatile Thursday on Wall Street.
Hong Kong: Asian and European markets recovered from losses on Friday ahead of a G20 meeting in Washington on the global financial crisis.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average rose 223.75 points, or 2.7 per cent, to 8,462.39, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 321.31, or 2.4 per cent, to 13,542.66.
Mainland China's key index rose 3.1 per cent, while markets in Australia and Singapore rose above 1 per cent. South Korea's Kospi ended flat after giving up an early rise.
The advance across most of Asia followed a volatile Thursday on Wall Street with an abrupt turnaround muscling the Dow Jones industrial average up more than 550 points, or 6.7 per cent.
"Professional investors are taking advantage of dips like we've seen in the past few days as a short-term trading strategy but we are not seeing long-term money coming back
into the market," said Mahendran Arjuna, HSBC Private Bank's chief investment strategist for Asia in Singapore.
In early European trading, Britain's FTSE 100 and Germany's DAX were both up 3 per cent, while France's CAC 40 was up nearly 2 per cent.
Some analysts said investors were positioning themselves ahead of the meeting Friday and Saturday of Group of 20 leaders in Washington.
The gathering could bring decisions on mending the troubled global financial system but is unlikely to produce any quick cure for the slowdown gripping major developed economies.
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