Dow fall batters Asian markets

LONDON/SINGAPORE, MAR 24: Asian stock markets incurred heavy losses Wednesday, hammered by an overnight nose-dive on Wall Street. Tokyo a...

LONDON/SINGAPORE, MAR 24: Asian stock markets incurred heavy losses Wednesday, hammered by an overnight nose-dive on Wall Street. Tokyo and Hong Kong shares plummeted around 3 per cent.

Hong Kong stocks tumbled 329.67 points to 10,711.34 on the benchmark Hang Seng index, dragged down by overseas market weakness and dumping of blue chips. The heaviest selling was in index blue chips HSBC Holdings and property firm Hutchison Whampoa. After shedding 2.2 per cent Tuesday, the benchmark Nikkei 225 tumbled anew Wednesday, sliding 3.14 per cent, or 503.63 points, to 15,515.47.

Overseas buyers were largely eclipsed by domestic sellers. Traders said the downtrend was spurred by local institutions dumping stocks to lock in gains ahead of the fiscal year-end on March 31. "It’s simply that we’ve had a very strong run in the past couple of weeks and you’ve got a natural correction from that," said Garry Evans, an equity strategist with HSBC in Tokyo. "You’ve got some overseas investors beginning to take a little profit."

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June Nikkei futures slid 450 points to 15,530. Currencies in the region traded in a narrow range as the yen performed relatively well against the dollar. Safe-haven buying waned as stock-related concerns eclipsed any psychological impact of the Kosovo crisis.

Australia’s All Ordinaries index shed 21.9 points, or 0.73 per cent, to end at 2,965.7. In Singapore the Straits Times index finished down 0.7 per cent, at 1,482.36, while Korean shares slipped nearly half a percentage point on the composite index to close at 611.48. Jakarta shares gave up almost 1 per cent to 391.345, hit by the negative sentiment across the region.

Malaysian shares pared some earlier losses but ended 1.77 per cent lower amid overseas selling ahead of key economic data. Taiwan’s weighted index eased 0.81 percent to close at 6,889.42, while Manila stocks eased 0.9 per cent and Thai stocks shed more than 1 percent.

The dollar came under some selling pressure against the yen despite the prospect of NATO air strikes in Kosovo and an intrusion into Japanese waters by suspected North Korean ships. "Foreign buying interest was strong but it could not keep up with the volume of domestic selling," said Shuichi Iwao, Chief of stock trading at Nippon Global Securities on Tokyo.

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"It’s the decline in the overseas markets," said Antony Mak, sales director of Vickers Ballas Securities. "Otherwise there’s not much in terms of local factors."

Concerns about the Dow’s steep fall outweighed initial safe-haven buying of the US currency in reaction to tension in Yugoslavia and North Korea. The dollar was quoted at 117.59/64 at 0747 GMT compared with 118.01/11 yen in late New York on Tuesday.

"I think people are keeping an eye on what NATO is doing there (in Yugoslavia). If war breaks out, you might see further selling in the US," Said Wilson HTM broker Joseph Pagliaro of Australia.