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"The market will be unstable in the short term and it will relate to the nuclear leak in Japan," said Liu Kan, an analyst at Guoyuan Securities in Shanghai. Shares in home appliances also gained after Sony, Panasonic, Canon and Nikon closed some factories in Japan. Sichuan Changhong Electric Co. Ltd. hit the daily limit after rising 10 percent. Benchmarks in Taiwan, Singapore and New Zealand were also higher. However, markets in Indonesia and the Philippines -- which count on Japan for a relatively large share of their exports
-- were down. Vietnam and Malaysia also slumped. Taiwan's TAIEX index recovered some lost ground -- up 1.1 percent -- after losing 3.4 percent Tuesday. But the index's near-term outlook remained shaky due to extensive trade ties between Taipei and Tokyo. "Taiwan's trade exposure to Japan is among the highest in the Asia region," DBS Bank Ltd. in Singapore said in a report. The nuclear crisis overtook financial markets around the world Tuesday. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 137.74 points, or 1.1 percent, at 11,855.42. The broader S&P fell 14.52 points to 1,281.87. Investors sold stocks primarily because of fear that the disaster in Japan would slow down the global economy. Japan is the world's third-largest economy, manufacturing goods from computer chips to automobiles, and buys 10 percent of U.S. exports. In currencies, the dollar was unchanged against the yen from Tuesday, at 80.83. The euro fell to $1.3964 from $1.40 late Tuesday. The dollar had fallen against the Japanese currency in the aftermath of the earthquake as investors bet that Japanese investors would close down overseas bets and bring their money home.
Demand for the yen may keep up as Japan seeks to fund the country's rebuilding. After a huge Japanese earthquake in 1995, the yen gained about 20 percent against the dollar in three months. Benchmark crude for April delivery was up $1.32 at $98.50 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract tumbled $4 to $97.18 on Tuesday as the prospect of falling oil demand from Japan sent crude prices down.
[Associated
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