Chinese and Australian shares ended at 7-year highs

Chinese and Australian shares ended at 7-year highs the trading session on Monday, while the increased focus on the upcoming meetings of central banks weighed on other Asian indices. The US Federal Reserve begins a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday, while the Bank of Japan will end its meeting on Thursday.

Shanghai Composite in China rose by over 3% to 7-year high, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong rose by 5% to its highest level since December 2007. The investors shook off weak data, which showed that industrial profits the first three months of the year decreased by 2.7% yoy.

Australian benchmark S&P ASX 200 also closed at 7-year maximum. The mining companies were the basis of growth, after the price of iron ore increased by more than 5% to a six-week high of 57 USD per ton. Fortescue Metals market capitalization rose by 16,3%, Rio Tinto by 3.4%, while BHP Billiton added 1.6%. Telco M2 slid more than 5% after confirming that it plans to buy rival iiNet 1.25 billion USD.

The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed below 20 thousand points after investors pulled their profits for the first quarter before submission of the reports of large companies such as Canon and Fanuc. Sony wiped 0.3% after news that former executives of the company have been charged with abuse of office. This offset news daily Nikkei, the company expects operating profit of 300 billion JPY for the next fiscal period, which will mark the best performance since 2008. Oil company Inpex lost 1.3% after news that it is in negotiations to acquire shares amounting to 5% in the Arab oil well 1.1 billion USD.

In South Korea KOSPI retreated from 4-year high of 2189 points reached briefly last week. Among blue chips Samsung Electronics dropped by 1%.