Asian markets dropped Monday, with the region's financials further extending losses on concerns about the global credit markets. Leading losers included Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group in Tokyo, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group in Sydney and Cathay Financial Holding Co. in Taipei.
Japan's Nikkei 225 Average declined 2% to 12,532.13 and the broader Topix index fell 1.9% to 1,224.39. The Hang Seng Index finished the day 0.9% higher at 22,705.05.
Japanese core machinery orders jumped 19.6 percent in January from the previous months, marking their first rise in three months, the government said Monday.
The result was better than the average forecast for a 3.1 percent increase by economists surveyed by Dow Jones and Nikkei.
In Tokyo, shares of Sony Corp. fell 5% after the Nikkei business daily reported Sony will stop manufacturing cellular phones for NTT DoCoMo Inc. by the end of this year because of a saturated domestic market. Sony will focus on overseas customers. NTT DoCoMo shares ended unchanged.
Shares of steelmakers extended losses after Nippon Steel Corp. Friday lowered its earnings forecast on rising input prices. Nippon Steel stock tumbled 5.4%, while JFE Holdings Inc. sank 6.7%.
On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite dropped 3.6% to 3,146.30, on top of a 1.4% drop on Friday.
Elsewhere:
New Zealand's NZX 50 index gave up 0.3% to 3,547.75.
South Korea's Kospi shed 2.3% to 1,625.17.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 dropped 1.6% to 5,180.40, after setting a 52-week low at 5,145.80 earlier in the day.
In Mumbai, the Sensitive Index, or Sensex, dropped 1.3% to 15,767.93 in afternoon trading.
with files from other wire services
