India, Hong Kong Stocks Rise

Satyam Computer reports a 35.8% surge in fourth-quarter net income.
By Stockpickr Staff ,

India Recap

Stocks in India hit a seven-week high Monday despite the Reserve Bank of India's decision to raise the cash reserve ratio. On late Thursday, the RBI hiked the cash reserve ratio by a half percent from 7.5% to 8%. Dealers in the region said investors in the Fat East shook off the hike and focused on bullish expectations for earnings reports out of

Reliance Industries

and

Tata Steel

.

"Absence of negative news from the U.S. markets and good corporate results helped lift sentiment," said Hitesh Agarwal, head of research at Angel Broking. "Even though the CRR hike was expected, the only surprise was the timing of the Reserve Bank's move." The Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark 30-stock Sensex Index rose 258.13 points, or 1.6%, to 16,739.33 points.

Indian information technology company

Satyam Computer

( SAY) reported a 35.8% surge in fourth-quarter net income at 24.16 billion rupees and an 18.6% jump in fourth-quarter net profit to 4.67 billion rupees, vs. 3.94 billion last year.

Satyam also announced it has acquired the market research and analytics operations of

Caterpillar

(CAT) - Get Report

for $60 million, and it bought Belgian supply-chain-consulting company

S&V Management

for $35.5 million. The company forecast that 2009 earnings per share will come in at a growth rate of 17%, and revenue will grow at 24%. Despite the bullish forecast, American depositary shares of SAY shed 3.5% to $25.36.

Elsewhere in the Indian outsourcing technology sector,

Patni Computer

(PTI) - Get Report

fell 4.5% to $13.38;

WNS Holdings

(WNS) - Get Report

dropped 2.6% to $19.47; and

Infosys Technologies

(INFY) - Get Report

lost 1% to $42.68.

Leading Indian banking giant

Icici Bank

(IBN) - Get Report

announced it has raised its rates for certain auto loans between 50 to 75 basis points in the first week of April, according to financialexpress.com. The bank decided to raise the rates before the Reserve Bank of India announced last week it was increasing the cash reserve ratio.

In a note to clients published April 18, Goldman Sachs Group analyst Sampath S.K. Kumar said that Icici Bank and the

State Bank of India

would be hit the worst by the central bank's decision to hike the CRR. Shares of IBN bucked the negative news and rose 4.5% to $44.11.

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 Hong Kong continued to ignore negative sentiment from investors in mainland China on Monday and instead turned toward positive global cues out of Wall Street. Dealers in the region said that Hong Kong shares are now completely tracking the U.S. markets because the region doesn't have runaway liquidity and inflation issues like Shanghai is experiencing.

Also helping boost shares in the Far East was a decision by the China Securities Regulatory Commission that said anyone who wants to sell more than 1% of a firm's total shares must do so in a bulk trade outside of the stock market.

Stocks in mainland China experienced a volatile trading session after being up at one point by 6.8%, before giving it all back to close marginally higher. Analysts were hopeful that the CRSC decision would eventually help move Chinese stocks higher and raise investor sentiment. The CRSC announcement hit the front page on almost all the newspapers in the region.

"Market sentiment still needs more time to recover," said Zhang Xiuqi, an analyst at Guotai Junan Securities. "The more market-boosting policies, the more confidence."

The Shanghai Composite Index added just 22.3 points, or 0.7%, to 3116.98 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index surged higher by 523.89 points, or 2.2%, to 24,721.67.

Chinese alternative-energy company

JA Solar

(JASO)

announced it has inked a long-term silicon wafer supply contract with a unit of

GCL Silicon Technology Holdings

. According to the terms of the agreement, GCL will supply around 6,000 megawatts of silicon wafers to JASO from April to December 2015. American depositary shares of JASO fell 0.66% to $25.58.

According to Marbridge Consulting, Chinese search-engine giant

Baidu.com

(BIDU) - Get Report

has launched a new gaming platform that will offer six different browser games: Zongheng Tianxia, Tiankong Zuo'an, Fangbianmian Sanguo, Luanwu Chunqiu, Empire, and XBA Manager. Shares of BIDU rose by 4.8% to $357.

China's largest mobile-phone carrier,

China Mobile

(CHL) - Get Report

, reported its net profit rose 37% for the first quarter due to a surge in new customers caused by rate cuts and new applications for mobile handsets. Net income jumped to 24.1 billion yuan ($3.4 billion) vs. 17.6 billion yuan from the previous year. Total subscribers rose 6% to 392 million, and the rate at which it signs up new customers jumped 33% to 7.6 million per month. Shares of CHL fell 1.5% to $85.42.

Elsewhere in the Chinese communications sector,

China Netcom

(CN) - Get Report

announced its first-quarter revenue rose 0.85% to 20.49 billion yuan, vs. 20.2 billion yuan from the previous year due to an increase in high-speed Internet customers. The company added 1.89 million high-speed Internet subscribers for the period ending in March, more than offsetting the loss of 1.7 million fixed-line customers. Total broadband customers came in at 21.7 million and 109.1 million for fixed-line customers. Shares of CN lost 1% to $58.71.

China's largest airline by fleet size,

China Southern Airline

(ZNH) - Get Report

, said its 2007 net profit surged 786% to RMB1.85 billion (US$264 million), vs. RMB209 million from the previous year due to the sharp gains in the yuan and strong passenger growth. The company also said its subsidiary Xiamen Airlines plans to buy 20

Boeing

(BA) - Get Report

737 series aircraft. Shares of ZNH finished up 1.1% to $30.11.

Leading the gainers among Chinese ADRs were

ReneSola

(SOL) - Get Report

, which ripped higher by 14% to $18.84;

China Finance Online

(JRJC) - Get Report

, which jumped 10% to $15.49;

China Petroleum & Chemical

(SNP) - Get Report

, which advanced by 10% to $100.56; and

Jinpan International

(JST)

, which closed up 9.6% to $34.50.

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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