Asian Commodity, Technology Stocks Advance, Led by BHP, Hynix

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Asian commodity and technology stocks climbed after the cost of oil, copper and zinc increased and on speculation the price of memory chips will rise.

Inpex Holdings Inc. jumped to a one-week high and BHP Billiton Ltd. advanced to a record after crude oil and metals prices gained on expectations the U.S. will trim borrowing costs to avert a recession. Hynix Semiconductor Inc. rose after it stopped selling its products on the spot market, fueling speculation chip prices are set to rebound.

``Commodities are driving the market today on the likelihood of further cuts to U.S. rates,'' said Rob Patterson, who manages the equivalent of $3.8 billion at Argo Investments Ltd. in Adelaide, Australia. ``Since the last rate cut our market's been on fire because it had a reassuring effect.''

The Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia-Pacific Index added 0.5 percent to 162.90 as of 10:41 a.m. in Tokyo, after yesterday closing at a record. The benchmark has gained 4.6 percent this week and climbed 6.9 percent in September, its best monthly performance since December 2005.

Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average was little changed at 16,819.12 after a three-day, 3.2 percent rally. Benchmarks climbed in Australia, Taiwan and Malaysia and were little changed in other markets open for trading. The CSI 300 Index added 1.6 percent in China, where the central bank yesterday raised interest rates on some mortgages and increased minimum down payments on property purchases to cool rising real-estate prices.

U.S. stocks rose yesterday, lifting the Standard & Poor's 500 Index by 0.4 percent to the highest since July as investors speculated a drop in new home sales will give the Federal Reserve more reason to lower interest rates.

Oil, Metals Climb

Inpex, Japan's largest explorer, added 0.9 percent to 1.18 million yen. Woodside Petroleum Ltd., Australia's second-biggest oil and gas producer, rose 2.9 percent to A$50.32.

Crude oil for November delivery increased 3.2 percent to $82.88 a barrel in New York yesterday, the biggest one-day gain since May 17 and the second-highest close. A measure of six metals traded on the London Metal Exchange rose 0.7 percent. Copper gained 1 percent while zinc jumped 3 percent.

BHP, the world's largest mining company, added 2.1 percent to A$44.44. Rio Tinto Group, the third biggest, climbed 1.3 percent to A$108.80.

Hynix, the world's second-largest computer-memory maker, added 1.5 percent to 31,400 won in South Korea. Samsung Electronics Co., the biggest, advanced 2.5 percent to 572,000 won.

Hynix said yesterday it stopped selling memory chips through the spot market ``for the time being.'' Spot prices of the benchmark dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chip have fallen 23 percent this month, according to Dramexchange.com, Asia's biggest spot market for chips.

DRAM prices may stabilize as other chipmakers may follow Hynix in reining in production, wrote Lim Seung Bum, an analyst at Hanwha Securities Co., in a report.