Asian stocks fell sharply Tuesday, as investors fretted over a spate of data pointing to a deepening slump in the manufacturing sector, with central banks in Australia and Japan unveiling new policies to combat the credit crunch.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index closed down 533.5 points or 6.4% at 7,863.7 while the benchmark Hang Seng Index closed down 703.0 points or 5.0% at 13,405.9.
On the economic front, the Bank of Japan said on Tuesday that Japan's monetary base was up 1.9% on year in November to 88.85 trillion yen. This came in higher than analyst expectations that had forecast the base to remain at the previous annual expansion of 1.4%. Seasonally adjusted, the monetary base added 7.9% on year to 90.446 trillion yen.
In the banking space, Mitsubishi UFJ slumped 6.9%, Mizuho Financial shed plummeted 8.4%, and Sumitomo Mitsui fell 7.8%. Top brokerage Nomura Holdings sank 9.7% after the company said Monday that it would issue up to 410 billion yen worth of bonds in its first fund-raising since acquiring units of failed U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.
Export-oriented stocks, Sony fell 4.6%, Canon dropped 6.2%, Advantest shed 8.6%, Fanuc tumbled 6.9%, Kyocera sank 7.0%, and Nikon slumped 7.2%. Toyota Motor slid 3.6% after its officials said that the top Japanese automaker would trim domestic production of luxury Lexus passenger car models sold overseas and Honda Motor dropped 6.9%.
Among commodity-related stocks, Inpex Holdings plunged 10.1% and Japan Petroleum Exploration lost 8.3%. Trading house Mitsubishi Corp slumped 10.1% and Itochu shed 12.2%.
Among gainers, Tokyo Gas jumped 4.1%, becoming the top positive contributor to the Nikkei 225.
CHINA
The Chinese stock market ended mixed, following massive overnight losses on Wall Street. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed down 5.0 points or 0.3% at 1,889.6 points, while the Shenzhen Component Index on the smaller Shenzhen Stock Exchange rose 31.84 points or 0.5% to 6,795.8 points. Decliners in the Shanghai market outnumbered gainers by 547 to 244, while 62 were unchanged. Aggregated turnover on the two bourses was 105.2 billion yuan. Food processors rose following a lifting of price controls, but banks fell on economic jitters.
Beijing Shunxin Agriculture gained 3.7%, Gansu Dunhuang Seed climbed 2.9% and China Quanjude Group, a popular chain of roast-duck restaurants, rose by the daily of 10%. Brokerages gained, with CITIC Securities advancing 1.3%, Haitong Securities surging 6.2% and Sinolink Securities rising 1.4%.
Market heavy weight PetroChina slipped 0.5% and oil refiner Sinopec lost 2.8%. In the financial sector, China Life Insurance fell 1.8% and Ping An Insurance slid 0.1%. China Merchants Bank shed 1.3% and Bank of China declined 0.3%.
Elsewhere:
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index or KOSPI shed 35.4 points or 3.4% at 1,023.2.
Taiwan's Taiex closed down 3.6% at 4,356.
Singapore's STI closed down 3.0% at 1,639.
Indonesia's Jakarta Composite Index closed down 2.6% at 1,191.
Malaysia's KLCI closed down 2.7 points at 845.
India's Sensex closed down 1.1% at 8,739.
The Australian S&P/ASX 200 was down 4.2% at 3,528.20.
New Zealand's NZSX-50 Composite shed 1.2%.
with files from other wire services
