News Summaries

Hope Grows for Asian Stocks

By DANIEL INMAN

In the past few years, analysts have been putting the Asian stocks down, stating that the values of the stocks will most likely go down. However, recently, particularly late 2012 and early 2013, stocks have been on the rise. China’s fourth quarter gross domestic product yielded a growth rate of 7.9%, the first year-over-year rise by Chinese in two years. Analysts are predicting even greater increases in share values for the coming quarters. A decline in raw-material costs, from businesses rebuilding inventories and from lower interest rates, is reaping benefits for the Chinese companies.

ICICI Bank Profit Beats Forecast

By NUPUR ACHARYA

India’s largest nonstate lender exceeded expectations with a 30% jump in its third-quarter net profit due to a high demand for loans. The net profit rose to 22.50 billion rupees, up from 17.28 billion rupees last year and surpassing the forecast of 20.89 billion rupees. The cause of this spike in net profit is due to a strong demand for loans from borrowers during India’s main festival season. The bank is boosting retail-loan business by pushing secured products while remaining cautious on unsecured loans. The ICICI bank expects to end the fiscal year with a massive 20% loan growth, and analysts expects even more growth to be coming up.

Who Says China is Building Too Much

Tom Orlik and Esther Fung

According to one of China’s leading developers, there is nothing wrong with oversupply. One of China’s largest commercial real estate developers switched from a buy-and-sell strategy to a buy-and-hold strategy in hopes of taking advantage of increasing rent prices. However, in Beijing, there has been no growth in rent price, and in Shanghai, there has been a 1% decrease. Furthermore, vacancy rates are increasing because buildings are being built faster than the demand for them is rising. Leading real estate developers still believe, however, that these vacant buildings...