Asian and Pacific stocks slid Tuesday, with Japan taking a hit on the auto market front and other markets in the region adopting a wait-and-see approach to the incoming Obama administration.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index closed off 191.06 points or 2.3% to end Tuesday’s trading at 8,065.79, an improvement from session lows, even as Japan's No. 1 automaker Toyota reported a decline in its 2008 sales and reshuffled its top ranks. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index ended down 380.22 points or 2.9% to 12, 959.77 after a slight rebound in late afternoon.
Toyota announced its overall sales were down 4%, including a 5% domestic decline. The company announced that Akio Toyoda, the grandson of its founder, would replace current President Katsuaki Watanabe in June.
Tuesday's figures were a precursor to a March report in which the company has said it expects to end 2008 with an operating loss for the first time in its history as a public company.
In more signs today that the slowdown is deepening, Japan’s Cabinet Office said consumers became the most pessimistic since records began, while a Chinese government spokesman said official urban unemployment may climb to an almost 30-year high.
Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Japan’s second-largest bank by revenue, fell 6.2%.
CHINA
China’s official urban unemployment rate jumped for the first time since 2003 and may climb to an almost 30-year high as exports slump and a slowdown deepens in the world’s third-biggest economy.
Registered unemployment rose to 4.2% as of Dec. 31, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said in briefing in Beijing today. It was 4% three months earlier.
A rate as high as the government’s 4.6% target for this year, announced today, would be the worst since 1980.
HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s largest bank, lost 7.7% in Hong Kong amid speculation the U.K. will take full control of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc after the lender forecast the biggest loss in British history. BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s largest mining company, dropped 4.7% in Sydney after oil and aluminum prices fell.
RBS shares plunged 67% yesterday as the U.K. agreed to swap preference shares it holds in the lender for ordinary stock. In exchange for government guarantees on losses from toxic debt, RBS will have to sign a binding agreement with the Treasury on how much it will lend and on what terms.
Hankook Tire Co., South Korea’s biggest tire maker, fell the most in seven weeks today after reporting a quarterly loss. Foxconn International Holdings Ltd. slumped 7.3% in Hong Kong, while Contact Energy Ltd. tumbled 9.4% in New Zealand after forecasting lower profits.
PT Bank Danamon Indonesia tumbled 12%, the biggest decline on MSCI’s Asian gauge.
Elsewhere:
Shanghai Composite Index gained 12.72 points or 0.6% to 2,025.19
Taiwan's Taiex index plunged 124.15 points or 2.8% to 4,242.61
Singapore's Straits Times Index was off 23.62 points 1.4% to 1,723.37
Korea's Kospi Composite was 57.86 points, or 2.4%, lower to 2,369.88
New Zealand's NZX-50 was off 38.49 points or 1.4% to 2,709.48
Australia's All Ordinaries index closed down 112.7 or 3.1% to 3,476.6.
