Asian Stocks Mixed On Last Trading Day Of 2013

(RTTNews) - Asian stocks ended mixed on Tuesday in light trading as some of the regional markets remained closed for New Year's Eve. A flat close on Wall Street overnight and a lack of positive triggers rendered investor mood somewhat cautious heading into the New Year.

China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.9 percent to 2,116, led by brokerages after China's securities regulator allowed five companies to raise a combined 2.1 billion yuan ($347 million) in initial public offerings in January, ending a year-long freeze.

Banks also gained ground despite concerns about growing government debt. Figures from the National Audit Office showed that the total debt of local governments in China had soared to 17.7 trillion yuan by the middle of this year, up nearly 70 percent from three years ago, highlighting the urgency to address structural issues.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 0.3 percent to 23,306 in a half-day session, led by banking and energy stocks. Hong Kong's export growth slowed to 5.8 percent in November from 8.8 percent in October, the Census and Statistics Department said. Exports totaled HK$325.5 billion.

Australian shares slipped marginally in holiday-shortened session, as most traders stepped away from their desks on the last trading day of the year. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index edged down 0.1 percent to 5,352. Miners ended mixed, with BHP Billiton edging down marginally and Fortescue Metals Group losing half a percent, while Rio Tinto added 0.3 percent.

Gold miner Newcrest lost nearly 2 percent and Medusa Mining shed 2.9 percent after gold prices fell more than a percent on Monday, shrugging off soft U.S. pending home sales data.

Among the major banks, NAB ended flat with a negative bias, while ANZ, Commonwealth and Westpac rose between 0.1 percent and 0.2 percent. Forge Group shares climbed 10 percent, a day after the engineering firm received formal clearance to proceed with phase three works at its Roy Hill iron ore project in the Pilbara.

On the economic front, overall private sector credit in Australia rose a seasonally adjusted 0.3 percent in November compared to the previous month, the Reserve Bank of Australia said. That was unchanged from the previous month, although it came in below expectations for an increase of 0.4 percent.

New Zealand shares ended the year 2013 on a weak note. The benchmark NZX-50 dropped 0.7 percent to 4,737 in thin holiday trading, with telecommunications operator Chorus, cloud-based accounting software firm Xero and exporter Fisher & Paykel Healthcare pacing the declines. Heavyweight Telecom dropped 1.5 percent and retailer Warehouse Group tumbled 2.9 percent. The market will be closed on Wednesday and Thursday for New Year's Eve.

Elsewhere, India's Sensex was up 0.1 percent, Malaysia's KLSE Composite was moving up 0.2 percent and Singapore's Straits Times index was up half a percent, while the Taiwan Weighted average slipped 0.1 percent. Stock markets in Indonesia, Japan and South Korea were closed for holidays.

South Korea's consumer inflation rose 1.1 percent in December from a year earlier, Statistics Korea said - moving above 1.0 percent after three straight months below that level.

On Wall Street, stocks ended roughly flat in quiet trading overnight, as traders seemed reluctant to make any significant moves following recent sharp gains. Investors shrugged off weaker-than-expected pending home sales data and looked ahead to a slew of economic reports in the holiday-shortened week. The Dow rose 0.2 percent, but the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq edged down less than 0.1 percent each.