Asian stock markets feb 1 2012

Indonesia stock info - Asian stock markets feb 1 2012 ; Asian stock markets were mixed Wednesday as investors were discouraged by a batch of soft U.S. economic data, while downbeat earnings in Japan continued to cap the Tokyo market.

The U.S. dollar attracted safe-haven flows amid general caution after U.S. consumer confidence, housing and manufacturing data revealed weakness in the economy, while concerns over Greece's protracted debt restructuring talks also undermined sentiment.

"As markets grow thick-skinned to the drawn-out (Greek debt) talks, they still have the potential to cause widespread damage," said Justin Harper, head of research at IG Markets in Singapore in a note to clients.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.1%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.2%, South Korea's Kospi Composite was up 0.2% and New Zealand's NZX-50 was down 0.1%.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were off one point in screen trade.

Regional markets were also focused on China's official manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index for January, which rose to 50.5 in January compared with 50.3 in December, and was higher than the median forecast of 49.5 in a Dow Jones Newswires poll of seven economists. The unexpected rise in the index is likely to assuage market concerns about a slowdown in Asia's largest economy.

The earnings season continued to influence trading in many markets, with investors keenly lapping up the outlook comments amid bearish global growth expectations for 2012.

In Tokyo, many companies struggled to show decent profits, hurt by last year's natural disasters, flooding in Thailand that hit several companies' offshore operations and a persistently high yen.

Honda Motor fell 1.5% after Tuesday forecasting a sharp 60% drop in profit for the full fiscal year.

Toshiba dropped 1.3% after cutting its full year earnings outlook by more than half, while Canon extended its losses, down 2.2% after a below-view fourth quarter profit rise.

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