“Asian stocks declined, dragging the regional benchmark index to its lowest level in a week, as slowing jobs growth in the U.S. added to signs the global economic recovery is faltering.
Panasonic Corp. (6752), the biggest maker of plasma televisions, fell 1.8 percent in Tokyo. Tokyo Electric Co. plunged 28 percent after the Asahi Shimbun newspaper quoted Tokyo Stock Exchange President Atsushi Saito as saying that the operator of the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant should be put under bankruptcy protection.Qantas Airways Ltd. (QAN) led airlines lower after the International Air Transport Association cut its 2011 industry profit forecast.
“We were anticipating a pretty dreadful jobs number and it did turn out worse than expected,” Arjuna Mahendran, Singapore- based head of investment strategy for Asia at HSBC Private Bank, told Bloomberg Television. “We’ll have another few weeks of a gradual selloff. That will be a good time to start hunting for bargains.”
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slipped 0.2 percent to 133.71 as of 7:53 p.m. in Tokyo, with more than three stocks falling for each that rose. The gauge last week capped its biggest streak of weekly losses since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008 as reports showed manufacturing growth from China, the U.S. and Europe slowed in May and American companies hired fewer workers than forecast, adding to signs the global economy is faltering.
