Asian Markets Tumble

Asian Regional Benchmark Hits 5 Year Low

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) — Asian stocks fell, dragging the regional benchmark to the lowest in more than five years, as the global recession hurts company earnings and forces share sales to bolster balance sheets.

Nomura Holdings Inc., Japan’s largest brokerage, slumped 8.2 percent on concern a planned $3.1 billion stock sale will reduce the value of existing shareholdings. BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s No. 1 mining company, retreated 2.1 percent in Sydney after crude oil dropped 4 percent. Suncorp-Metway Ltd., Australia’s third-largest general insurer, declined 5.4 percent after saying first-half profit tumbled 33 percent.

“The shoring up of banks, rate cuts and stimulus measures all take time to filter into the real economy and benefit listed companies,” said Paul Xiradis, who manages the equivalent of $8 billion as chief executive officer of Ausbil Dexia Ltd. in Sydney. “A degree of impatience has come into the market.”

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 1.7 percent to 75.01 at 10:33 a.m. in Tokyo, set for its lowest close since Aug. 28, 2003. The MSCI World Index lost 0.4 percent, falling for the 11th consecutive day, during which the U.S. and Australia passed stimulus packages to bolster their economies.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 2.3 percent to 7,204.54. A close less than 7,162.90 today would be the lowest since October 1982. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 1.3 percent, set to close at its lowest level in five years.

Futures on the U.S. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.5 percent, following the benchmark index’s 3.5 percent slide to the lowest level since April 1997 yesterday. U.S. regulators said they will begin examining which banks have enough capital to survive a deeper recession.

Oil, Nomura

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index has lost 16 percent in 2009 as recessions in the world’s largest economies and a slowdown in China batter corporate earnings around the globe. Economists in a Bloomberg survey expect Hong Kong’s government to say tomorrow the city’s economy shrank in the fourth quarter by the most since the second quarter of 2003.