Asian stocks rallied from a seven- week low on Tuesday (although Hong Kong, China and Taiwan remained closed for the lunar new year), led by banks and mining companies, as borrowing costs declined and US and Australian data provided some good news amid deepening gloom over massive corporate job cuts and global recession fears.
Asian markets (Tues – HK closed until Jan 29)
05:12am GMT
Nikkei up 387.84 (5.05%) to 8,069.98
Topix up 37.12 (4.83%) 805.40
Hang Seng (Fri): down 79.39 (-0.63%) at 12,578.60
US markets (Mon)
DJIA up 38.47 (0.48%) at 8,116.03
Nasdaq up 12.17 (0.82%) at 1,489.46
S&P500 up 4.62 (0.56%) at 836.57
European markets (Mon)
FTSE100 up 156.54 (3.86%) at 4,209.01
Eurofirst 300 up 24.12 (3.17%) at 784.66
Currencies
05:14 GMT
€/$ 1.3227 (1.2934)
$/¥ 89.41 (89.24)
£/$ 1.4057 (1.3653)
Commodities
05:17 GMT
Brent Crude (Mar09) up $0.44 at $47.40
Light Crude (Mar09) up $0.65 at $46.38
100 Oz Gold (Feb09) down $5.20 at $903.60
Copper (Mar09) up 50.00 at $3,565.00
10-year government bond yields (%)
US 2.64 (2.61)
UK 3.69 (3.69)
Germany 3.35 (3.25)
Japan 1.26 (1.22)
Sources: FT, Reuters