Asian markets took a tumble Monday in the wake of a pre-weekend slide on Wall Street, with Shanghai-listed stocks suffering in particular as heavy snowfall across parts of the country disrupted food and energy supplies as well as transportation.
Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell nearly 4 percent to close at 13,087.91, erasing its jump on Friday, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index sank 4.3 percent.
Much of the selling in Japan was of shares in steelmakers, machinery producers and exporters. Hitachi Construction plunged 14 percent. Video game console maker Nintendo, which depends heavily on the U.S. market, was also hit hard, falling 9.7 percent. Sony Corp. was down 4.5 percent.
Shares of telecommunications major KDDI Corp. rose 0.3% in Tokyo despite the broad market weakness, after it Friday reported a 40% increase in quarterly operating profit and raised its annual operating profit forecast.
However, shares of NTT DoCoMo Inc. dropped 3.6% after the Nikkei business news reported that it is expected to post a drop in operating profit for the nine-month period ended Dec. 31 on fewer subscriber additions and discounts offered by the telecom firm.
The Shanghai Composite index plunged 342.39 points to 4,419.29 amid worries about weaker demand from American consumers. Concerns over the potential impact of a prolonged bout of severe winter weather also took a toll.
Elsewhere:
New Zealand's NZX 50 index slipped 0.5% to 3,710.32.
South Korea's Kospi dropped 3.9% to 1,627.19.
Taiwan's Weighted index gave up 3.3% at 7,485.79.
Australia's stock markets were closed Monday for a national holiday.
with files from other wire services
