stock market

Asian Stocks Fall as World Concern Heightens

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Asian stocks have dropped, deepening the hole of the regional benchmark index’s biggest quarterly deterioration in over two years.

Sony Corp fell 6.2% in Tokyo, reaching its lowest price in 24 years, while Toyota Motor Corp, the largest carmaker in the world, fell 2% as well. Building materials, suppliers and mining companies have also seen significant losses.

“The U.S. is not falling into recession, but it’s definitely slowing down,” said Diane Lin of Pengana Capital in Sydney. “We might face more risks, particularly in a market that hasn’t had enough of a correction.”

In Tokyo, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 2.8%, hitting 109.99., just before the meeting with the EU finance ministers. Nearly seven stocks fell for each that rose in the measure, and every one of the ten industry groups weakened.

The world’s concern increases as the gauge drops more than 20%, the European debt crisis worsens and the U.S. economic growth recedes.

Substantial Drop in Asian Shares

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Recent world events – New Zealand earthquake, Japan’s credit rating downgrade and continued Middle East and Libyan unrest – led to a significant drop in stock markets across Asia.  For example, South Korea’s Kospi, the Nikkei 225 stock and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index all plummeted around 2 percent.  As well, Japan had trouble dealing with its huge debt following Moody’s Investors Service downgrading its outlook for the country’s credit rating, citing “increasing uncertainty” over Japan’s capacity to effectively deal with rising debt.  This doesn’t spell good news for the country which only last month had its sovereign debt rating cut by Standard & Poor.  Australia, China, Singapore and Taiwan are currently in the same boat vis-à-vis stock markets. The only good news for the region of late has been the increase in oil prices.