Asian stock markets are mostly trading higher on Wednesday following media reports that Greek conservative party leader Antonis Samaras is expected to deliver a letter of commitment to the country's international lenders on Wednesday morning. Samaras, who will likely become Greece's next prime minister after April elections, had previously indicated that he would want the Greek bailouts to be renegotiated if he were elected.
Buoyed by a weaker yen on the back of likely monetary easing measures by the Bank of Japan, the Japanese market opened higher on Wednesday with shares from from automobile and electronic machinery sections posting some solid gains.
Financial, insurance, steel, non-ferrous metal stocks too are mostly trading higher. Gas, communications, oil and chemical stocks are trading mixed.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index is currently trading at 9,146.6, up 94.5 points or 1 percent from its previous close.
Mazda Motor, up 6.3 percent, is the top gainer in the Nikkei index. Toyota Motor is gaining over 3 percent, while Honda Motor, Nissan Motor and Suzuki Motor are trading higher by 2 to 2.5 percent. Isuzu Motors and Hino Motors are also trading notably higher, while Mitsubishi Motor is trading lower by about 1 percent.
Shinsei Bank, SMFG, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, Mizuho Financial and Aozora Bank are up 1.3 to 3 percent. Bank of Yokohama is trading modestly higher, while Chiba Bank is down in negative territory with a loss of 1.2 percent.
Kawasaki Kisen is up nearly 6 percent and Fuji Heavy Industries is trading higher by about 5.5 percent. Sony Financial Holdings, Heiwa Real Estate, Mitsui OSK Lines, Tokio Marine, Nomura Holdings, Kansai Electric Power, Komatsu, Mitsui Fudosan, Fanuc and Denso Corp. are up 3 to 5 percent.
Advantest, Mitsubishi Estate, Fujifilm Holding, Nippon Yusen, Panasonic Corp, Hitachi Construction Machinery, Konica Minolta, Sony Corp and Yokohama Rubeer are all trading higher by over 2.5 percent.
Elpida Memory Inc., Japan's sole maker of memory chips, plunged 21 percent after saying that it still has not secured enough financing to stay in business as an April debt deadline approaches.
Yahoo Japan is trading lower by over 4 percent. Showa Shell is down with a loss of 2.6 percent. Nitto Boseki, Tokyo Tatemono and Tosoh Corp are among the other notable losers.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar traded in the mid-78 yen level in early deals in Tokyo. The yen is currently trading at 78.62 to the U.S. dollar.
The Australian market is trading weak with investors pressing sales following a weak U.S. retail sales report. Worries about the European economy on the back of recent downgrades by ratings agency Moody's Investors Service and concerns about Greek debt are also hurting sentiment to a notable extent.
Mining, energy and consumer discretionary stocks are mostly trading weak. Property trusts stocks are in demand, while financial and industrial stocks are trading mixed.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index, which declined to around 4,225, is currently trading at 4,231.3, down 11.5 points or 0.3 percent from its previous close. The broader All Ordinaries index is down 12.3 points or 0.3 percent at 4,303.6.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced that its net profit of the half year ended December rose 19 percent to A$3.62 billion. On a cash basis, the bank's first-half profit rose 7 percent to A$3.576 billion on revenue of A$23.7 billion. The stock is up marginally over its previous closing price.
Aquarius Platinum is trading lower by over 7 percent. Primary Healthcare is down by about 6 percent. Paladin Energy is down with a loss of 3.6 percent..
CSR, Caltex Australia, Atlas Iron, Computershare, QBE Insurance Group, Investa Office Fund, Lynas Corporation, Goodman Fielder, Harvey Norman Holdings, Iluka Resources and Monadelphous Group are trading lower by 1.5 to 2.6 percent.
Meanwhile, CFS Retail Property Trust, Westfield Retail Trust, Dexus Property Group, GPT Group and Spark Infrastructure are trading higher by 1.8 to 3.5 percent.
On the economic front, new motor vehicles sales in Australia increased in January by a seasonally adjusted 1.3 percent from December, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported Wednesday. Vehicle sales were a seasonally adjusted 2.7 percent higher than in January 2011, the Bureau said. A total of 85,624 vehicles were sold last month.
The trend estimate of January sales, which further smooths the seasonally adjusted data, showed a 0.9 percent on-month decline. The trend estimate also showed a a 1.6 percent year-over-year increase.
Meanwhile, Westpac Bank's Consumer Sentiment index rose 4.2 percent from January to 101.1 in February, in seasonally adjusted terms. January's reading was 97.1. The index reading for February is 5.2 percent lower than in February 2011.
Among other Asian markets, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan are trading marginally higher, while New Zealand is trading lower.
On Wall Street, stocks recovered some lost ground and ended flat on Tuesday after trading with a negative bias almost right through the session. While the Dow inched up 4.2 points to 12,878.3 and the Nasdaq edged up by 0.4 points to 2,931.8, the S&P 500 ended down 1.3 points at 1,350.5.
Major European markets ended slightly lower on Tuesday. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index edged down by 0.1 percent, the German DAX index and the French CAC 40 index drifted down by 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively.
U.S. crude oil futures pared early gains and ended lower on Tuesday due to a strong dollar and somewhat weak U.S. retail data. Prices were also impacted by continued eurozone worries and Moody's downgrading credit ratings of Italy, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Malta.
Light sweet crude for March delivery gained $0.17 or 0.2 percent to settle at $100.74 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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Market Analysis
June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.