Asian Market Review Friday April 6, 2012 – Low Volume due to holiday weekend

By FXEmpire.com

Asian markets opened lower following losses on Wall Street, with many foreign exchanges and banks closed for holidays.

The Nikkei index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange fell 0.69 per cent or 67.45 points to 9,700.16 in the first minutes of trading on Friday.

The Topix of all first section shares lost 0.74 per cent or 6.17 points to 826.40.

“There weren’t any decisive news catalysts overnight,” said Rakuten Securities senior market analyst Masayuki Doshida.

“The (Nikkei) index is likely to be rangebound,” with several regional bourses closed for a holiday, he told Dow Jones Newswires.

The US dollar stood at 82.18 yen, nearly flat from 82.25 yen in New York in Thursday.

The euro was at $1.3060 and 107.33 yen, also nearly unchanged.

Japan has passed a ?90.3 trillion ($A1.07 trillion) budget, with about half the spending expected to be financed by new bonds that will add to Japan’s massive debt mountain.

Although the opposition-controlled upper house of parliament voted down the budget earlier on Thursday, it was still passed after a draft was approved last month in Japan’s lower chamber.

“The budget bill was enacted, based on the constitution,” a parliamentary official said.

Decisions by the powerful lower house have priority in case of conflict with the upper house and automatically become law 30 days after being sent to the upper chamber.

The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange opened down 82.49 points at 9,737.50.

A rally on Chinese equity markets has helped the Australian dollar to recover from a three month low.

Thursday, the Australian dollar was trading at 103.05 US cents, up from 102.82 cents on Wednesday.

The Aussie was at 84.74 Japanese yen, down from Wednesday’s close of 85.04 yen 78.36 euro cents, up from 77.88 euro cents.

The currency had received some support from Chinese stock markets, which reopened after three days of public holidays.

The New Zealand dollar has eased after weak demand at a Spanish bond auction caused stocks on Wall Street to fall, reigniting fears the region’s sovereign-debt crisis is far from over.

The New Zealand dollar fell to 81.40 US cents at 8am from 81.60 cents yesterday at 5pm.

Tepid demand at a Spanish government bond auction spooked investors who had been upbeat about global growth prospects and sparked a sell-off in higher-yielding, or riskier, assets.

Reflecting the negative risk sentiment, the safe-haven US dollar and Japanese Yen strengthened against all of the major currencies pushing the kiwi dollar down.

Against the Japanese yen, the euro fell 0.7% to ?107.62. The dollar also slipped, buying ?82.42, down from ?82.57

Most Western Markets are Closed on Friday April 6, 2012 and many are Closed on Monday April 9, 2012.

Originally posted here