Monday's Asia ADR Recap

The stocks from China and India making moves and news in the U.S.
By Stockpickr Staff ,

Update from 5:30 p.m. EDT

Indian stocks broke a three-day winning streak Monday as investors stayed on the sidelines ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) policy meeting set for Tuesday. Dealers said that positive global cues couldn't offset market speculation of a 25-basis-point rate hike. Investor sentiment is quickly deteriorating as many market players expect wild volatility to move into Indian equity markets once the RBI announces its decision.

"Volumes were low and there was little participation from mutual funds and other domestic investors," said Gaurang Shah of Geojit Financial Services. The Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark 30-stock Sensex Index fell 110 points, or 0.6%, to 17,015.

India's second-largest bank,

Icici Bank

(IBN) - Get Report

, on Saturday reported a 39% rise in fourth-quarter net profits due to higher fee income. The company said net profit for the fourth quarter was 11.5 billion rupees ($287 million), vs. 8.25 billion rupees from the previous year and well above Wall Street estimates of 9.07 billion rupees. Total income for the fourth quarter came in at 103.91 billion rupees, vs. 84.95 billion rupees a year ago. Retail loan growth fell sharply to 3% in the fiscal year from 30% a year ago. Writedowns for overseas assets in the fiscal year also totaled $170 million.

"The quarterly numbers beat expectations but profit, loan growth will be under pressure at least for the next two quarters," said Vaibhav Agarwal, banking analyst at Angel Broking. American depositary shares of Icici, which trade on the

NYSE

, fell 3.8% to $45.38.

Elsewhere in the Indian banking sector,

HDFC Bank

(HDB) - Get Report

fell 2.8% to $111.59 as investors dumped financial shares on concerns that rapidly declining loan growth at Icici Bank will spillover to hurt the entire Indian banking complex.

Global steel producer

ArcelorMittal

( MIT) announced it has chosen Indian information technology (IT) leaders

Satyam Computer Services

( SAY) and

Mindtree

to handle its western European IT work. Under the terms of the deal, ArcelorMittal will consolidate around 70% of its currently sub-contracted IT work to both parties under a three-year deal. Shares of Satyam finished down 1% at $24.35.

Market speculation surrounded Indian IT company

Wipro

(WIT) - Get Report

that a number of top executives were planning to leave the company due to recent changes in its management hierarchy, according to the

economictimes.com

. The company put the rumors to rest and said only PR Chandrasekar, president of Americas and Europe, had resigned, but no other executive had left. Shares of Wipro finished essentially flat at $12.69.

Be sure to check out the

Far East Portfolio

at Stockpickr.com every night to find out which stocks in India and China are making big moves and announcing major news.

China Recap

Stocks in China fell Monday after

China Petroleum & Chemical

(SNP) - Get Report

, reported a 69% drop in first-quarter profits and

PetroChina

(PTR) - Get Report

said net income fell 32% due to skyrocketing crude oil prices. Dealers in the Far East also said a flood of new shares coming off lockup periods also weighed on stock prices and raised concerns about liquidity.

"The key focus of Monday's session was oil refiners, following the release of Sinopec's weak first-quarter earnings. The fact that oil prices hit a record high made a bad picture worse," said Qiu Yanying an analyst at TX Investments.

The Shanghai Composite Index fell 83.03 points, or 2.33%, to 3,474.72 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index closed up 149.51 points, or 0.6%, to 25,666.29.

Sohu.com

(SOHU) - Get Report

, one of China's leading Internet portal operators, soared 14% after the company beat first-quarter revenue estimates and guided well above Wall Street targets for the second quarter. The company said first-quarter revenue surged 156% to $84.8 million, vs. estimates of $69.3 million. For the second quarter, Sohu.com said revenue would be in the range of $93 million to $96 million and non-GAAP EPS would be 72 to 75 cents a share, vs. estimates for revenue of $77.8 million and EPS of 44 cents. American depositary shares of SOHU jumped $8.97 to $70.81 on 10 times the average daily volume.

Chinese online game developer and operator

Giant Interactive Group

(GA)

ripped higher Monday after the company said peak concurrent users (PCU) for its flagship game ZT Online hit 2.1 million, which represents a record for the Chinese online game sector. Shares of Giant surged 14% to $13.96 on over 3 times average daily volume.

In the Chinese generic-drug sector,

Simcere Pharmaceutical Group

( SCR) announced a major shareholder has agreed to sell a 9.3% stake in the company through a private transaction. Under the terms of the deal,

King View Development International

, which is affiliated with private equity firm

Trust Bride Partners

, has agreed to buy 11.8 million ordinary shares from

New Good Management

. The deal is expected to close in mid-May, and New Good Management will still control a 39.6% in Simcere. Shares of Simcere surged 7% to $13.30.

China's top oil and gas producer

Cnooc

(CEO) - Get Report

reported a 62% rise in first-quarter total revenue due to surging oil prices and higher crude production. Results for the quarter came in at RMB 24.034 ($3.4 billion), vs. RMB 14.851 for the previous year. Crude production jumped 3.7% year-on-year to 392.772 barrels a day and net production in offshore China rose 6.3% year-on-year. Shares of CEO traded up 3.6% to $179.48.

Elsewhere in the Chinese energy sector, PetroChina reported that net income fell to 28.9 billion yuan ($4.1 billion) or 0.16 yuan a share, vs. 42.1 billion yuan, or 0.24 yuan a share from a year earlier. China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. said its first-quarter net profit fell sharply to 6.062 billion yuan, or 0.043 yuan per share, vs. 19.609 billion yuan, or 0.226 yuan per share. Shares of PTR fell 1.9% to $146.58 and SNP lost 2.5% to $104.07.

Be sure to check out the

Far East Portfolio

at Stockpickr.com every night to find out which stocks in India and China are making big moves and announcing major news.

For more on Asia, check out

Daniel Harrison's coverage

at

TheStreet.com

.

Stockpickr is a wholly owned subsidiary of TheStreet.com.

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