By Kevin Plumberg
* Euro stuck near 4-mo low against dollar as bond sales eyed
* Portugal, Spain, Italy to tap markets this week
* Asian stocks dip; Jakarta slumps 4 pct on inflation woes
* Oil rebounds after leak shuts Alaskan pipeline
By Vikram S.Subhedar
HONG KONG, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Fears that debt-ridden
Portugal may have to seek government aid kept the euro near a
four-month low and appetite for risky assets weak, although a
rebound in oil prices helped energy shares in Asia.
Portugal, also scheduled to sell 1.25 billion euros of
debt on Wednesday, is expected to pay a high price to tap
capital markets. Spain and Italy will also come to market in
what is seen as the year's first major test of whether the
euro zone's higher risk countries can finance their huge debt
piles at sustainable cost. []
A senior euro zone source told Reuters on Sunday that
pressure was growing on Portugal from Germany and France to
seek financial help from the EU and IMF to stop the bloc's
debt crisis from spreading. []
The euro zone pressures though were unlikely to dispel a
trend seen in the new year for an increased willingness to
take risks.
"The year started out on a fairly bullish note and what
we're seeing is some caution out there," said Lorraine Tan,
director for equity research for Asia at Standard & Poor's in
Singapore.
"Whenever there's going to be a government bond auction in
Europe, its going to create some anxiety in the markets and I
think that's going to be a characteristic of this year," she
said.
The euro fell to lows not seen since mid-September,
slipping as low as $1.2860 on trading platform EBS
before clawing back to around $1.2900.
Asian stocks were slightly lower on Monday with trading
volumes light as Japanese markets were closed for a public
holiday. The MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index
fell 0.5 percent with energy stocks outperforming on oil's
rebound.
Volatility was increasing in some markets with a history
of vulnerability to inflation, such as Indonesia, Asia's top
performing major equity market in 2010.
Indonesia's main stock index fell around 5 percent
as foreign investors continued dumping shares of banks on
concerns that the country's central bank was behind the curve
on inflation and would probably have to catch up.
[]
"I think some foreign investors were not too comfortable
with the central bank not raising interest rates despite high
inflation," said Ferry Wong, head of Indonesia research at
Macquarie Securities in Jakarta.
OIL BOUNCES
In commodity markets, U.S. crude oil <CLc1> rose towards
$89 a barrel, bouncing back from last week's 3.2 percent dip,
after a leak shut an Alaskan pipeline that carries 12 percent
of the U.S. crude output.
The Trans Alaska Pipeline was shut down on Saturday with
no indication of when it would reopen after a leak discovered
at Prudhoe Bay, forcing oil companies to cut output to 5
percent of their daily average of 630,000 barrels.
[]
Earnings season for major U.S. corporations kicks off
later on Monday with major industrials, big oil, banks and
chipmakers scheduled to report quarterly numbers.
Aluminum producer Alcoa , scheduled to report later
on Monday, is expected to post a strong fourth-quarter profit
amid signs that a growing global economy is pushing up demand
for aluminum and driving up the metal's price.
Analysts, on average, have raised their forecast for
Alcoa's 2011 earnings per share 3.7 percent in the past seven
days, according the Thomson Reuters Starmine.
(Editing by Kevin Plumberg)
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