HONG KONG (AP) – Japanese stocks jumped again, leading gains in Asian markets Tuesday as investors remained hopeful about the prospects of more stimulus following a stronger-than-expected election victory by the country’s ruling coalition.
KEEPING SCORE: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index surged 2.5 percent to 16,095.65 a day after soaring 4 percent. Gains in other regional indexes were more subdued, with South Korea’s Kospi edging up 0.2 percent to 1,991.59 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng adding 0.9 percent to 21,069.68. The Shanghai Composite Index in mainland China was advanced 1.1 percent to 3,028.29 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.5 percent to 5,362.00. Benchmarks in Taiwan, New Zealand and Southeast Asia also posted gains.
JAPAN SENTIMENT: Investors continue to feel bullish after results on Monday showed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, which heads the ruling coalition, emerged victorious from parliamentary elections. Abe has promised new government spending to help aggressively jolt Asia’s second-biggest economy back to life. While he has released few details, investors are betting he’ll keep flooding the markets with money by expanding bond purchases using newly printed money in a program known as quantitative easing.
THE QUOTE: “Abe has always been supportive of quantitative easing, thus his victory has brought more hope to the market that we will probably see a new round of ‘Abenomics’ soon,” said Margaret Yang of CMC Markets in Singapore.
POKEMON POWER: Shares of Nintendo Co. jumped 13.2 percent in Tokyo, fueled by the craze for “Pokemon Go,” a smartphone game based on the video game maker’s characters that’s become the top grossing app in the iPhone store less than a week after its release in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. The “augmented reality” game layers gameplay onto the physical world, letting players wander the physical world in search of digital monsters.