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Summary
A strong showing on Wall Street and a massive jump in Japan's trade surplus boosted Asian markets Wednesday as the euro's troubles extended amid rows over how to deal with Greece's debt crisis. The upbeat figures stoked hopes that, with the world's two biggest economies growing stronger, a global recovery was well on track. Tokyo closed 0.38 percent, or 40.88 points, up at 10,815.03, Hong Kong was 0.44 percent higher by the break while Singapore added 0.17 percent. Japan released data earlier that showed a 651.0 billion yen (7.2 billion dollars) trade surplus in February, soaring from 70.8 billion yen the year before. The figure was helped by a 45.3 percent jump in exports on higher shipments of automobiles, auto parts and microchips. Export-oriented companies were also helped by a slightly weaker yen, with Toyota Motor gaining 1.5 percent to 3,715 yen and electronics firm Sharp adding 3.21 percent to 1,125 yen. Asian markets were given a boost by a 0.95 percent jump in US stocks to their highest finish since September 26, 2008, when the global crisis had started to hit markets. The gains in New York were spurred by better-than-expected data showing existing home sales fell to 5.02 million units in February. Analysts had forecast the figure to drop to 5.0 million.
