Taiwanese Stocks Rise for Third Day Running; Chase Manhattan Reportedly in Talks to Buy Robert Fleming
DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to take a look now at Asian markets, Taiwanese stocks were the highlight in Asia overnight as they rose for the third day running.</s>DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Investors in Taiwan are growing optimistic now about their new president and the prospects for peace with China. Here's Lorraine Hahn -- Lorraine.</s>LORRAINE HAHN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you very much. The Nasdaq providing some gains over here today, still adjustments ahead of the year-end book closing, which is on March 31st in Japan, sending Tokyo down slightly. Internet giant Softbank again under pressure today, its stock price fell 10 percent. But Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, or NTT, saw its share price jump eight percent on hopes that it won't bow to government pressure to sell its stake, rather, in mobile phone unit NTT Dokomo, also on news that talks between Japan and the United States on the telecoms market ended today without agreement, Washington apparently has been pushing NTT to lower its connection fees. Meanwhile, Japan's trade surplus with the world jumped 27 percent in February, and that with the United States rose some 66 percent during that same period. Overall, the Nikkei was down one tenth of a percent. Hong Kong hitting its highest level in two weeks today thanks to blue-chip Hutchison Whampoa confirming its sale of Vodafone AirTouch shares, bringing some $5 billion to Hutchison's wallet. Hutchison today also reporting a $15 million net profit for the year 1999. Hutchison stock today up about five percent, while the Hang Seng index put on roughly one percent. And for the third straight day the Taiwan markets surged, putting on five percent today on easing political worries and heavy overseas buying in that market. Big news today, outgoing president Lee Teng- hui says he will quit as chairman of the Kuomintang Party tomorrow. Lee was blamed for the Nationalists' defeat at last weekend's presidential elections after 55 years in power. Lee will remain as president until May 20, that is when Chen Shui-bian takes over. That's a quick check from me. Back to you in New York.</s>MARCHINI: All right. Lorraine, thank you.</s>HAFFENREFFER: Well, Chase Manhattan will certainly be a stock to watch in today's session, the company is apparently in talks to buy the British investment bank Robert Fleming.</s>MARCHINI: It's one of the highlights of the morning in London. Here's Todd Benjamin with that and some more. Hi Todd.</s>TODD BENJAMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Deb and Dave. You're right, they are reportedly in talks. The "Financial Times" is reporting that this is the case, now I tried to call Robert Fleming earlier, I got a hold of them, but the spokesperson was just mum on what's going on, he said no comment. Of course, Chase is not commenting either. But what the "Financial Times" is reporting is that Chase is in advanced talks with Robert Fleming, and Robert Fleming is one of the last independent financial groups in the U.K. because there's been so much takeover activity. It has about $140 billion under management in its asset-management business. It also has an investment bank. It also has a well-known presence in Asia. And if a deal were to happen, it's speculated that Fleming could fetch as much as $4.6 billion, and it might give Chase greater in-road into the European market, but the problem for any of these U.S. banks looking to Europe is that, you know, the big players have already been swallowed up, take Warburg, right, its Warburg Dillon Reed now, take Klienwort Benson, it's now Klienwort Dresdner, of course, Dresdner being the German bank, so the pickings have become a lot slimmer. In terms of the overall markets, this morning, they're doing a mixed performance this morning. London from the start has been down, that is still the case, it's off a half percent. The Dax is off 1.3 percent. Paris is off 1.3 percent. And Zurich is off one percent. So they're all down now after starting off mixed. In the currency market, we've got the dollar about a third-yen higher against the Japanese currency. The euro is up slightly but still struggling. A lot of people are baffled with the interest rate hikes we've scene out of the ECB too this year that the euro has failed to move higher, but because the U.S. stock market is still so attractive, that's still taking a lot of flow of funds out of Europe into the U.S., and that is not helping the euro's cause. And the pound is slightly changed against the greenback. Couple of stocks I want to mention to you, we're talking about SmithKline Beecham, which trades in the U.S., yesterday it was up after Warner-Lambert announced it was going to withdraw its controversial diabetes drug from the market at the FDA's request. While SmithKline Beecham was up yesterday, it's down today some three percent. BP Amoco is down one percent. Shell is off two percent. In terms of oil ahead of the OPEC meeting coming up, oil is up eight cents at $25.48 in London trading, but certainly well, well off its highs that we saw just a few weeks ago. Back to you in New York.</s>HAFFENREFFER: All right, thank you, Todd. Search CNN.com CNNSI.com CNNmoney.com The Web