Asian market preview 07/04/2008

Most shares rose in the US on Friday following the bad economic data on non farm payrolls and unemployment rate. Employers slashed 80,000 jobs and unemployment rate rose 5.1% which were the highest since September 2005. These data were worse than expected but most investors have already anticipated that and they're more optimistic regarding the stock markets after banks showed signs of recovery in replenishing their capital. Analysts have become more optimistic after a series of bad data and yet the US markets were still able to post a big weekly gain last week. Dow Jones slipped 16.61 pts or 0.13% to 12609.42, S&P500 gained 1.09 pts or 0.08% to 1370.40 while Nasdaq rose 7.68 pts or 0.32% to 2370.98.

Asian markets may open flat today following the bad and worse economic data than previously anticipated by investors. Most shares in the US adavanced on Friday, led by commodity producers and also financial sectors even after plunging at the open caused by bad data. Crude oil rose on Friday and was traded around $106ish per barrel, gold also rose on Friday and was traded around $913ish while JPY gained some grounds against US$ and was traded around 101.50ish. Nikkei futures was closed at 13350 at CME compared to the close of 13345 here on Friday.

The Kospi may start the day flat with a downside bias today following the bad data over in the US and also the rise in commodity prices may spark more concerns among local investors. Market may open around 229ish and investors may have a little bit profit taking session after the market rose quite a lot for the past week. However, I think the market won't go down very much and may rise again later on in the day as more confidence and optimism were shown over in the US with most shares advanced rather than declined on Friday.

Hangseng may start the day lower today around 24150ish after the bad data over in the US is worse than most analysts expected. With Hong Kong market's holiday on Friday, profit taking may take place early in the session today as nervous investors may start to lock in profit after the market have risen so much the past week. However, market won't go weak very long or too deep as the market worldwide have shown more optimism that the US markets have started its recovery process.