Australia Stocks, Japan Futures Rally as Sentiment Improves

By Patrick Rial

March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Australian shares and Japanese stock futures climbed after crude prices surged and statements from Bank of America Corp. and General Electric Co. eased concern the financial crisis will deepen.

BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s No. 1 mining company, gained 2.3 percent in Sydney as oil soared 11 percent on speculation countries will cut production. U.S.-traded receipts of Sony Corp. jumped 4.1 percent from the closing share price in Tokyo yesterday after the electronics maker said it will form a partnership with Seiko Epson Corp. on liquid-crystal displays. Mizuho Financial Group Inc. also gained 4.1 percent.

“Nervousness about the stability of the financial system has been behind recent declines, and the retreat of those fears is a definite plus,” Kazuhito Suzuki, a strategist in Tokyo at Shinkin Asset Management Co., which oversees about $6.1 billion, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “The outlook today is bullish.”

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index jumped 1 percent to 3,266.80 as of 10:06 a.m. in Sydney. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index rose 1.1 percent in Wellington. Futures on Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average expiring in March finished at 7,500 in Chicago, up from 7,090 in Osaka and 7,095 in Singapore.

In New York, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index soared 4.1 percent. The gauge climbed 11 percent during the past three sessions, the biggest three-day gain since November. Bank of America followed Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in saying it was profitable in the first two months of 2009.

GE rallied 13 percent after saying it doesn’t expect any adverse impact stemming from its loss of its AAA rating at Standard & Poor’s.

Oil, Sony

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index has plunged 19 percent this year and is off 58 percent from its peak in September 2007. Analysts’ earnings estimates for companies included in the benchmark have come down by two thirds in the past year.

Crude oil for April delivery rose 11 percent to $47.03 a barrel in New York, the biggest gain since Feb. 19. The contract surged ahead of a meeting by OPEC this weekend where production may be cut for a fourth time.

Sony, the world’s second-largest maker of consumer electronics, will buy equipment for manufacturing LCDs from Seiko Epson as part of an alliance, the companies said yesterday.

Japan’s government is considering using zero-coupon bonds to fund exchange-traded fund purchases as it works to shore up the stock market, the Nikkei newspaper reported. The move would allow retail investors to convert the bonds into stocks should the market rise, according to the report.

To contact the reporter for this story: Patrick Rial in Tokyo at prial@bloomberg.net.