Australia Stocks, Japan Stocks in U.S. Rise on U.S. Auto Rescue

By Masaki Kondo

Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Australia shares and Japan’s stocks traded in New York rose after the U.S. government agreed to provide automakers with emergency loans to stay in business.

BHP Billiton Ltd., the biggest mining company, climbed 0.5 percent in Sydney even after oil had the biggest weekly drop in almost 18 years. U.S.-traded receipts of Honda Motor Co. added 0.5 percent from the closing price in Tokyo after the White House said on Dec. 19 General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC will get $17.4 billion in loans, easing concern a failure of the U.S. auto industry will deepen a recession in the world’s largest economy.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 0.1 percent to 3,617.80 as of 10:09 a.m. in Sydney. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index added 0.7 percent to 2,673.44 in Wellington.

“Policy responses from governments will continue to shore up investor sentiment, though the deterioration of the global economy and company earnings won’t end soon,” Tomochika Kitaoka, a Tokyo-based strategist at Mizuho Securities Co., said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

The Bank of New York Mellon Japan ADR Index, which tracks American depositary receipts of the nation’s companies, added 0.4 percent. Nikkei 225 Stock Average futures expiring in March closed at 8,575 in Chicago, lower than 8,600 in Osaka and 8,580 in Singapore.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index is down 43 percent in 2008, the worst annual performance in the regional benchmark’s two-decade history, as the global financial crisis dragged the world’s biggest economies into recession. Losses and writedowns tied to the collapse the U.S. subprime-mortgage market rose above $1 trillion last week.

Crude oil for January delivery, which expired on Dec. 19, dropped 6.5 percent to $33.87 a barrel in New York, the lowest settlement since February 2004. Futures declined 27 percent since Dec. 12, the steepest weekly tumble since January 1991.

President George W. Bush’s rescue plan for the automakers helped push the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index up 0.3 percent on Dec. 19. GM, the biggest U.S. automaker, and closely held Chrysler would have run out of cash as soon as this month without the loans.

To contact the reporter for this story: Masaki Kondo in Tokyo at mkondo3@bloomberg.net.