Asian Markets Overview of March 15, 2010

Sydney, Mar 15, 2010 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Asian shares received mixed lead from Wall Street. Friday the US market closed flat after better-than-expected US retail sales and slightly lower consumer sentiment data. Meanwhile, financial shares erased some of their gains after rallies last week. Asian markets also closed mixed Friday. Japan's Nikkei was 0.8 per cent higher, led by Japanese exporters. But Shanghai and Hong Kong markets dropped as banks and mainland based real estate shares were hit by concerns over policy tightening amid rising inflation. Shanghai Composite fell to nearly a three week low.

Company News

Chinese battery and electric car maker BYD Co. (HKG:1211) said Sunday its 2009 net profit jumped significantly from a year earlier because of sharp growth in car sales. The company said its net profit for the 12 months ended Dec. 31 rose 271.5 per cent to 3.79 billion yuan from 1.02 billion yuan a year earlier.

Cnooc Ltd. (HKG:0883) (NYSE:CEO), a unit of China National Offshore Oil Corp. said Sunday it has agreed to form an oil production joint venture with Argentina's Bridas Energy Holdings Ltd. for US$3.1 billion to boost its oil production and reserves. Cnooc said the deal enables the mainland's biggest offshore oil producer to expand its international footprint into Latin America and other countries. Bridas Corp, currently wholly-owned by Bridas Energy, will become equally owned by the partners. The transaction is expected to boost Cnooc's reserves and average daily production by 318 million barrels of oil equivalent and 46,000 barrels of oil equivalent, respectively.

Japanese steel maker, JFE Steel, owned by JFE Holdings Inc (TYO:5411), may pick up a 14 per cent stake in Indian steel maker JSW Steel Ltd. (BOM:500228) for about INR39 billion, an India media said. JFE could buy JSW Steel's shares at INR1500 per share. The two companies entered into a strategic agreement last November primarily focused on auto-use steel, which included supply high-end products to auto makers in India.

The Japanese government is considering separating Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp's (TYO:9432) fiber-optic businesses into a new company, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Monday. The move is part of the government's effort to spread the use of high-speed broadband. About 30 percent of Japanese households now have access to broadband. The government plans to increase the ratio to 100 percent by 2015.