Japanese share market added on strong merchandise trade balance

European shares advanced despite mixed economic data

European shares rose on Friday, boosted by encouraging corporate earnings and relatively good economic data, while prospects for a deal over Greece's debt crisis also lifted Athens' volatile market. The Eurozone’s manufacturing index slows in April, slipping to 53.5 from 54.0 in March, when it reached an 11-month high. The data confirmed ongoing expansion but fell shy of rising expectations caused by the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing stimulus programme. German’s sentiment was also hurt by Greek’s debt crisis, as the index of investor and analyst expectations, decreased to 53.3 in April from 54.8 in March.

The major Eurostoxx 600 Index of the region rose slightly 3.2% to close at 408.42 points on Friday’s evening. The gains and looses of the industries divided almost equally, while gains were led by banking and basic materials sectors, which soared 1.8% and 3.1%, respectively. The major Greek banks, were among the largest market movers, since there was an optimism over Greece, after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had had a "constructive" meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. As a result, the Alpha Bank AE surged 31.86% to 0.267 euros, while the Eurobank Ergasias SA advanced 31.4% to trade at 0.117 euros. Nevertheless, Bilfinger SE, dropped as much as 18.15% to 47.055 euros, the most in eight months. The shares plunged, after the German engineering company appointed the Norwegian Per Utnegaard as chief executive officer, after the company lowered its profit target.

Among other market indicators, German DAX lost around 0.6% to 11,826 points, while the British FTSE 100 index, in turn, added 0.26% to close at 7,070.70 mark back on Friday.

American stock market advanced on good corporate earnings

US share market continued its positive tendency despite the fact, that the economic reports were weak, with manufacturing growth slowing and durable goods orders falling. Orders for non-military capital goods excluding aircraft, fell 0.5% in March, posting the seventh straight month of declines. Overall, durable goods orders rose 4.0%, driven by a 31% rise in bookings for non-military aircraft and a 5.4% increase in automobile orders. Nevertheless, the US existing home sales rose 6.1% in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.19 million, the highest level in 18 months, while new US single-family home sales had their largest drop in the same time period, declining 11.4% to an annual rate of 481,000 units.

For the week ended April 24 the main S&P 500 Index rose slightly 0.8% to 2,117.69 points. The gains were led by telecommunications and technology, which rose 2.3% and 2.2%, accordingly. Energy and industrials, in turn, were the week’s worst performers, as they dropped 1.06% and 1.03%, respectively. Among the best performing companies, Amazon. Com Inc, an American electronic commerce company, soared 18.5% to trade at $445.10, since Amazon’s net sales increased 15% to $22.72 billion in the first quarte, compared with $19.74 billion in first quarter 2014. Meanwhile, analysts had forecasted revenue of $22.39 billion. Nevertheless, Denbury Resources Inc, oil and gas exploration and production company, lost 10.4% to trade at $9.58.

Among other market indicators, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased marginally 0.25% to 18,080.14, while NASDAQ gained 1.9% to close at the 5,092.08 mark.

Japanese share market added on strong merchandise trade balance

Japanese stocks performed in the same successful way as American share market. Concerning the economic data, which was not rich, as usual, the Japanese merchandise trade balance came at 229.3B yen for the month of March, above forecasts of 50B yen, while imports measured on an annual basis coming in at -14.5%, below expectations of -12.8%. Moreover, export in turn, also measured on the yearly basis, met forecasts of 8.5%.

The benchmark Topix Index advanced 2.2% to close at 1,618.84 points in the end of the last week. All the industries included in the gauge posted a strong increase. The best performance was showed by securities, insurance and other financing business, as they gain in value in the range from 3% to 7%. The major gainer of the previous week was Kubotek Corp, a Japan-based company mainly engaged in the manufacture of image processing equipment, soared 86.7% to 915 yen per share, while Isolite Insulating Products, insulation materials manufacturer climbed 23% to trade at 272 yen. On the other hand, Kimuratan Corp, a Japanese company which designs and manufactures baby and children's apparels, went down 10% to 9 yen per share, while Nippon Parking Development C followed with a decrease of 10% to 189 yen.

The second-largest stock index of the country, Nikkei 225, rose as much as 1.9% to 20,020.04 points, while on the basis of last three months the gauge is showing a strong 14.3% increase in value.

Asian shares grew on strong Chinese data

Share markets in the Asia-Pacific economic region showed a moderate growth during the previous trading week, while almost all the main stock indexes increased in weekly value and followed their counterparts from other parts of the world. Meanwhile, the People’s Bank of China cut its reserve ratio requirement by 1 percentage point to 18.5%, showing the largest move in its history. The action injects liquidity in response to weakening first-quarter Chinese growth, disappointing trade data and heightened deflation fears. The PBOC has also cut interest rates twice since November. By the way, the HSBC flash manufacturing purchasing managers’ index for China dropped to 49.2 in April from 49.6 in March.

The S&P/ASX 200 Index, which represents the biggest companies of the region, mostly from Australia, surged 1.7% to hit the 5,933.3 mark on Friday’s evening. All sectors showed a positive development last week, headed by basic materials and technology industries, which jumped as much as 4.9% and 3.3%, respectively. Eventually, BC Iron, managed to be among the leaders, as the company’s shares surged 61.5% to $0.42 per stock, on the back of a 5.9% jump in iron ore prices and the release the company’s positive quarterly activities. Fortescue Metals Group Ltd, an Australian iron ore company, also showed a strong growth of 18% to trade at $2.21 due to positive tendency in the iron ore prices. Nevertheless, MMA Offshore Ltd, one of the largest marine service providers of the oil and gas in Australia, plunged 15.07% to trade at $0.62.

The Hang Seng Index grew 3.5% upside movement to reach 28,060.98 points last week, while New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index fell slightly 1.01% to 5,765.35 points.

EXPLANATIONS

Indexes

• Standard & Poor's 500 Index (S&P 500) or (SPX) - U.S. stock market index consisting of the 500 large-cap shares widely traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ.

• Dow Jones Industrial Average Index (INDU) - U.S. stock market index consisting of the 30 large publicly owned U.S. companies , primarily industrials

• NASDAQ Composite Index - U.S. stock market index representing all the stocks that are traded on the Nasdaq stock market, mostly technology and Internet-related

• New Zealand Exchange 50 Gross Index (NZX 50) - stock market index consisting of the top 50 companies listed on the New Zealand Stock exchange

• S&P/ASX 200-a market - capitalization weighted stock market index of stocks listed on the Australian Securities Exchange from Standard and Poor’s

• Hang Seng Index (HI) - Hong Kong’s stock market index consisting of 48 largest companies listed on the Hong Kong Exchange

• Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average (Nikkei 225 Index) or (NKY) - Japanese stock market index consisting of the 225 largest companies listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange

• FTSE 100 Index (UKX) - U.K. stock market index consisting of the 100 most capitalized U.K. companies trading on the London Stock Exchange

• DAX Index (DAX) - German stock market index consisting of the 30 largest and most liquid German companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange

• Eurostoxx 600 - stock market index, derived from the Stoxx Europe Total Market Index, consisting of 600 large, mid – and small-sized companies from 18 European countries

Chart

• Correlation - statistical measure of the linear relationship between two random variables. It is defined as the covariance divided by the standard deviation of two variables.

• Historical price changes - chart reflecting the historical price changes of particular region’s stock indices

Indicators

• Industry performance - weekly performance of industries within the particular stock market index

• Top performers - companies within a particular stock market index showing the best or worst weekly performance

• Performance - relative historical change of stock market index value