By Akiko Ikeda Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell the most in more than a week after Standard & Poor’s cut Ireland’s debt rating, boosting concern that Europe’s debt crisis will slow a global economic recovery. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Japan’s biggest bank by market value, dropped 1.9 percent. Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s three largest carmakers, fell at least 0.9 percent each as the euro weakened to a two- month low against the yen, damping the outlook for export earnings. Tokyo Electron Ltd., a maker of semiconductor equipment that gets 16 percent of its revenue from South Korea, retreated 2.1 percent after North Korea attacked South Korea yesterday, when Japanese markets were closed for a holiday. “Unless it becomes clearer that things will improve, concerns will remain and that will slow investment activities,” said Koichi Kurose, chief strategist in Tokyo at Resona Bank Ltd., which manages about $57 billion. The Nikkei 225 fell 0.8 percent to 10,030.11 at the 3 p.m. market close in Tokyo, its biggest drop since Nov. 12. The broader Topix index lost 1 percent to 866.57, with all of its 33 industry groups retreating. The Nikkei 225 increased 9.9 percent this month to yesterday, the most among 88 national equity benchmarks tracked by Bloomberg. Stocks in the Japanese gauge are valued at 17.8 times estimated earnings on average, compared with 13.9 times for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index in the U.S. and 11.8 times for the Stoxx Europe 600 Index. --With assistance from Jonathan Burgos in Singapore. Editors: Nicolas Johnson. To contact the reporter on this story: Akiko Ikeda in Tokyo at iakiko@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Gentle at ngentle2@bloomberg.net.

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