(Repeating to additional subscribers with no changes to text)
* Aussie dlr at 13-mth high on forecast-beating retail
sales
* South Korean won at 1-yr high,Taiwan dollar near 1-yr
peak
* Asian shares gain in Q3 for second straight quarter
By Umesh Desai
HONG KONG, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Asian shares edged higher on
Wednesday looking past a surprise fall in U.S. consumer
confidence and the Australian dollar jumped to a 13-month high
after August retail sales data beat forecasts.
European stock futures <STXEc1> pointed to a slight rise in
opening trade on the last day of a quarter seen registering the
strongest gain in nearly a decade, while U.S. equity futures
<SPc1> were up about 0.2 percent.
China's main stock market jumped a percent boosted by the
acquisition plans of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
(ICBC) <601398.SS>, the world's biggest bank by market value,
while the Korean won <KRW=> rose to a near one-year high.
"GDP and earnings are still being upgraded, valuations are
not horribly expensive and cash is still zero percent, we are
in a sweet spot," said Khiem Do, head of the Asia multi-asset
group at Baring Asset Management.
He expects the stock rally to sustain and corrections to
remain mild for the rest of the year.
Referring to U.S. consumer confidence he said: "It is a
volatile data, next month it may be up again and it is very
difficult to predict. Its not as if its been falling for months
in a row."
AUSTRALIANS SPEND
The Aussie dollar, which has been on the uptrend after
recent market talk about an imminent rate hike lifted its yield
allure, received a further boost as data showed consumers
continue spending even as the stimulus programme nears its end.
The data took the currency <AUD=D4> to a peak of $0.8820
and pushed interest rate swaps <AUDIRS> to a three-week high as
markets priced in a greater chance of a rate increase in
November, with increased chances of hike in December as well.
The Shanghai Composite Index <> rose as much as 1.8
percent after ICBC said it was bidding to buy Thailand's ACL
Bank <ACL.BK> for up to $545 million to tap rapid growth in the
Thai economy and in trade. [].
Yet, the benchmark stock index has lost around 7 percent so
far this quarter and is heading for its worst quarterly
performance this year, mainly reflecting worries about an
oversupply of shares.
South Korea's won currency <KRW=> rose as high as 1,177.5
to a dollar, a one-year high, forcing foreign exchange
authorities to buy the greenback to curb the won's strength.
Taiwan, which competes with South Korea in exports of a
number of goods, including electronics, also saw its currency
rise, with exporter deals and foreign fund inflows boosting the
Taiwan dollar <TWD=TP> to a near one-year high. The currency
rose to as high as T$32.157 to the U.S. dollar.
Broadly, Asian stock markets were higher as investors
ignored an unexpected fall in U.S. consumer confidence in
September, which brought down shares at Wall Street.
The MSCI index of Asia Pacific stocks traded outside Japan
<.MIAPJ0000PUS> was up about 0.4 percent and is set to post a
second straight quarterly gain.
The regional gauge is up 21 percent this quarter, adding to
the second quarter's 32 percent gains. Prior to that it had
posted six successive quarters of losses.
The Thomson Reuters index for stocks in Asia-Pacific
ex-Japan <.TRXFLDAXPU> was down about half a percent.
Japan's Nikkei average edged up 0.3 percent in cautious
trade, with investors hesitant to actively take positions ahead
of a series of economic data releases and at the end of Japan's
fiscal half-year.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar fell against the yen <JPY=>
towards an eight-month low marked earlier this week as Japanese
exporters sold the dollar to settle business before the quarter
ends.
Earlier, the dollar had risen on short-covering and as
Japanese importers bought dollars. But it soon erased gains as
such corporate demand faded.
The dollar slipped 0.4 percent from late U.S. trade to
89.65 yen <JPY=>, erasing earlier gains to 90.42 yen on trading
platform EBS and falling towards an eight-month trough near
88.20 yen hit on Monday.
"The market is dominated by quarter-end flows from
companies and position-squaring by investors, temporarily
lacking a clear sense of direction," said Tsutomu Soma, senior
manager of foreign securities at Okasan Securities.
But to others the dollar's reversal was not surprising and
the broad downtrend for the U.S. currency is still down.
"The U.S. dollar will remain under pressure to depreciate
while currencies in Asia will tend to rise given improving
growth prospects in the region," said Stephen Roberts, an
economist at Nomura in Sydney.
(Additional reporting by Rika Otsuka in TOKYO; Editing by Jan
Dahinten and Mathew Veedon)
