Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
Author: Zico
The central bank lifted the benchmark base rate to 3.25 percent from 3 percent at a monthly monetary policy meeting.
The action dampened investment sentiment, because traders _ believing that rate hikes discourage growth and hurt stock prices _ often take fright. Hynix Semiconductor, one of the world’s largest memory chip makers, sank 4.7 percent. LG Electronics lost 2.6 percent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was 0.8 percent down to 22,440.99 as banking shares dropped.
The Bank of China Ltd., one of the country’s four major state-owned commercial lenders, lost 0.5 percent. Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., the country’s biggest rural lender, lost 1.2 percent. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s biggest bank by market value, was down 0.3 percent.
Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 rose 0.3 percent to 4,562.50. Benchmarks in Indonesia, the Philippines and New Zealand were also higher, while Singapore and Taiwan and mainland China fell.
On Wall Street, a report that U.S. exports hit a record in April sent stocks sharply higher Thursday as investors hoped the economic recovery may not be as sluggish as grim economic reports in the past week have suggested.
Stocks have been slipping since mid-April as investors become concerned that the U.S. economy has hit a soft patch. Rising oil prices, Japan’s tsunami and nuclear disaster and the risk that Greece might default on its debt have led investors to lower their forecasts for U.S. growth this year.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.6 percent to close at 12,124.36. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.7 percent to 1,289.00. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.4 percent to 2,684.87.
Thursday’s gains broke a six-day losing streak and marked the first time stocks rose in June. Stocks had dropped following poor reports on manufacturing, home sales, hiring and consumer confidence.
Benchmark crude for July delivery rose 11 cents to $103.04 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.19 to settle at $101.93 a barrel on Nymex on Thursday.
In currencies, the euro rose to $1.4537 from $1.4509 in late trading Thursday in New York. The dollar fell to 80.08 yen from 80.26 Japanese yen.
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