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Asian Stocks End Mixed On Earnings(Alliance News Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) CANBERA (Alliance News) - Asian stocks ended mixed on Thursday as investors treaded cautiously, taking cues from regional earnings and upbeat US GDP figures released overnight. The US Federal Reserve reiterated its commitment to keep rates near zero for a "considerable time" after ending its monthly bond purchases, easing investor concerns about capital flight from emerging markets. Japanese shares fell in choppy trading as investors locked in some profits after four consecutive days of gains. The benchmark Nikkei average slid 0.16% to 15,620.77 after rising to a fresh six-month high earlier in the day. Exporters rose on the back of a weaker yen, with Panasonic, Nikon and Mazda Motor closing up between 0.6% and 1.3%. Mitsubishi Motors rallied 2.6% on reporting a bigger-than-expected increase in net profit. Other top automakers ended largely unchanged after industry data showed automobile production in Japan expanded for the tenth consecutive month in June. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group rose 1.7% after posting better-than-expected quarterly results. Electronics manufacturer Casio Computer soared 7.8% after the company raised its earnings forecast for the first half. Drug maker Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co. jumped 5% as it entered into clinical study collaboration with AstraZeneca to evaluate the safety and efficacy of two separate combinations of three investigational compounds in multiple solid tumors. Fujfilm Holdings Corp. shed 0.8% as it reported a 1.8% decline in quarterly revenue. Nintendo shares plummeted 6.5% after the struggling videogame console maker posted a worse-than-expected loss for the fiscal first quarter amid shrinking sales and dull demand for its Wii U console. Chinese shares rose sharply, with banks and miners pacing the gainers ahead of official manufacturing PMI data due out tomorrow. The benchmark Shanghai Composite index closed up 0.93% at 2,201.56, marking its best monthly performance since December 2012. Investors shrugged off a warning from the International Monetary Fund that China's growth rate could plummet in the coming years unless Beijing implements its reform agenda. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 0.1% to 24,756.85, extending its winning streak for an eighth consecutive session. Australian shares hit a fresh six-year high despite some downbeat data. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.2% to 5,632.9. Banks led the gainers, with ANZ, NAB, Westpac and Commonwealth rising between 0.3% and 0.8%. Rio Tinto gained half a percent after announcing a sale of its Mozambique coal assets for USDUS50 million (USD53 million). Rival BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group fell about 0.8% each, while gold miner Newcrest added 0.4%. Shares of rare earths miner Lynas Corporation plunged 17% after the company released its quarterly update. Woodside Petroleum shed 0.8%. Based on proxies lodged ahead of tomorrow's shareholders meeting, the country's largest oil and gas producer said more than 70% of votes have shareholders in favor of a share buyback proposal from Shell. GR Engineering Services jumped 4.6% on winning a contract renewal with Origin Energy on the Australia Pacific LNG project. On the economic front, the total number of building approvals issued in Australia gained a seasonally adjusted 16.0% year-over-year in June, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said - coming in at 15,659. That was shy of forecasts for an increase of 23.3% following the upwardly revised 15.2 jump in May. Another report showed that the export price index fell 7.9% sequentially in the second quarter of 2014, its biggest quarterly fall since late 2010, following the downwardly revised 2.8% increase in the first quarter. Seoul shares retreated, with sentiment hit by sluggish second-quarter corporate earnings by tech companies. The benchmark Kospi average eased 0.31% to 2,076.12, snapping its four-session winning streak. Shares of Samsung Electronics tumbled 3.7%. The company flagged uncertain earnings prospects for its handset business after reporting a near 20% decline in second-quarter net profit, citing a slowdown in its smartphone sales and a surging Korean won. Naver Corp dropped 2.6% despite the online portal operator reporting a 39% rise in second-quarter operating profit. New Zealand shares rose despite mixed global cues. The benchmark NZX-50 index added 0.18% to finish at 5,167.99, with 24 of its components advancing while 17 ended in the red. Chorus shares rose over 2% to a four-week high on the heels of an analyst upgrade, Telecom Corp rallied 2.3%, online auction site Trade Me advanced 1.5% and Fletcher Building, the nation's largest listed company, added a percent. Gold miner OceanaGold led the decliners, falling 12% to USD3.45. In economic releases, M3, New Zealand's broadest measure of money supply, rose 5.4% to NZUSD272.5 billion from a year earlier in June, following a 5.2% rise in the previous month, central bank data showed. Elsewhere, Singapore's Straits Times index was up 0.7%, while the Taiwan Weighted average fell 1.4%, India's Sensex was down 0.3% and Malaysia's KLSE Composite was declining half a percent. Singapore's unemployment rate grew at a steady pace in the second quarter as employment decreased moderately, data from the Ministry of Manpower showed. Advance estimates revealed that Taiwan's economic growth accelerated more than expected in the second quarter, fueled by growth in private consumption and exports. US stocks ended a choppy session mixed overnight, as traders digested upbeat GDP data as well as the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement. The Fed reduced the pace of its asset purchases by another USD10 billion to USD25 billion per month and upgraded its assessment of the US economy, while reaffirming it is no hurry to raise interest rates. The Dow slid 0.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose half a percent and the S&P 500 inched up marginally. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX |