Forbes.com staff, 11.17.08, 11:59 AM EST
Markets in Hong Kong and South Korea give up gains; Japan manages to hang on to its pared gain, while Australia loses heavily on weak resources.
The G20 countries offered more platitudes than plans at a weekend summit, leading to choppy trading and not much conviction across Asia. Stocks recovered opening losses and then pared or canceled out morning gains, as some investors interpreted data out of Japan and Hong Kong indicative of recession as reason to withdraw, while others picked for bargains among blue chips.
In a turnaround from last week's dismal performance, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose by 0.7% Monday, to 8,522.58 points, and the broader Topix expanded by 0.4%, to 850.49, after the G20, a grouping bringing together developed and major emerging market nations, called Saturday for more progress in global trade talks by the end of 2008 and further stimulus measures and rate cuts by individual governments. They also set a deadline for more concrete proposals by their second summit, in April. Investors looked past data showing that Japan unexpectedly slipped into a recession in the third quarter. The economy shrank by 0.4%, whereas analysts had expected a marginal expansion.