Nikkei: 8,500.80 (–254.64) Hang Seng: 18,963.89 (–1,050.54) Shanghai Comp: 2,479.54 (–45.38):ASIAN STOCKS sank yesterday, after Japan's machinery orders dropped and China's export growth slowed and Europe's debt crisis has infected Italy.
“Europe’s problems are structural and require more than a tinkering on the edges to resolve,” said Lee King Fuei, a Singapore-based fund manager at Schroders.
HSBC slipped 9.1 per cent to HK$61.90 in Hong Kong, the most since March 2009, after the lender posted a 53 per cent fall in third-quarter pre-tax profit at its investment bank.
Fanuc slipped 4.1 per cent to ¥12,280 in Tokyo.
Komatsu, Asia’s biggest maker of construction equipment, dropped 5.1 per cent to ¥1,898.
Chipmakers tumbled after the price of computer-storage chips dropped to their cheapest levels on record. Elpida fell 10 per cent to ¥377. Toshiba, which receives 18 per cent of sales from semiconductors, fell 6.7 per cent to ¥323.
Inotera Memories, a Taiwanese DRAM-chip maker, dropped 7 per cent to NT$4.12.
BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest mining company and the Australia’s top oil producer, slipped 2.2 per cent to A$37.48. – (Bloomberg)
