Japan shares gain for sixth straight day miners boost Australian bourse

Asian markets were stronger today with the Hang Seng and Nikkei both up around 1%.

In Japan all sectors were stronger with the Financials sector the standout performer up 2.4%. The gains in Japan marked the sixth straight day of gains for the Index as the country’s gross domestic product shrank less than expected and after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek resigned. Toyota Motor Corp jumped 2.3%% after the company announced it will streamline its management.

It was a similar story in Hong Kong with all sectors in the black. Speculation that inflation may slow China and ease the need for further monetary policy tightening gave stocks a reason to rise. Great Wall, a Chinese automaker, surged 7.3%. Anhui Conch Cement Co, China’s biggest cement maker, rallied 5.5%.

In Australia, materials and energy stocks took charge and led the local market higher today.

Investors are holding on to their long positions on miners and some are still buying into the big blue chip shares. The market is pretty buoyant – very strong overall.

Now that the Egyptian situation had been resolved (on the weekend), it seems like investors are quite keen to get back into the market. Optimism is coming back.

Commodity prices are still up. They’ve been up for the past few days already and this is translating into higher prices for local miners.

At the same time we saw a lot of buying into bank shares. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) was the highest traded share today followed by BHP Billiton and RIO Tinto. Investors must be encouraged by the fantastic performance of these blue chip stocks including CBA and Rio Tinto (which reported healthy profit figures last week).