HONG KONG: Asian stocks slumped today due to tremors from the eurozone and worries about further measures by China to cool its economy, with Shanghai down more than 3% in the afternoon.
While Tokyo was closed for a public holiday, Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 index ended the day down 1.17%, or 54.4 points, at 4,589.1, Shanghai's Composite index was down 3.15% in the afternoon and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was off 2.34%.
"The market is just fatigued," RBS head of sales Justin Gallagher told Dow Jones Newswires in Sydney.
"Europe has been something of a time bomb for a while now and there's still this undercurrent of structural issues that haven't been dealt with," he said, referring to worries that some eurozone countries may still have unresolved debt problems despite a bailout agreed for Ireland.
Traders also voiced worries about China and the likelihood of further measures to cool the economy, after Chinese authorities raised banks' reserve requirement ratios last week in response to surging inflation.
"The latest reserve requirement ratio hike isn't enough to curb inflation," said Zhuang Qianhua at Huatai Securities.
Responding to the eurozone's woes, the European single currency fell against the greenback and the yen in Asian trade.
The euro sank to 1.3564 US dollars from 1.3622 dollars late yesterday. It traded at 113.31 yen compared with 114.82 yen yesterday.
The greenback bought 83.54 yen compared with 83.29 yen earlier.
Insider-trading probe
Wall Street presented a mixed picture yesterday, with worries about Europe compounded by a vast insider-trading probe in the United States.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.22%, while the broader S&P 500 index fell 0.16%.
However, the tech-rich Nasdaq was up 0.55%, boosted by an 8.9% rise in shares of subscription movie service Netflix.
In other developments, New Zealand Oil and Gas, which holds almost a one-third stake in the Pike River coal mine where 29 men are missing after an explosion, saw its shares plummet 27.50% when a trading suspension was lifted.
In Sydney, Qantas stocks rose slightly after the carrier announced it would begin flying its Airbus A380 superjumbos again from the weekend, after they were grounded for 19 days due to engine safety fears. Shares in Qantas closed up one cent at A$2.64.
Oil prices fell due to the worries about Europe, analysts said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for December delivery, fell 66 US cents to US$81.08 in the afternoon. Brent North Sea crude for January shed 77 US cents to US$83.19.
Gold opened at 1,363.50-1,364.50 US dollars an ounce in Hong Kong, up from yesterday's close of 1,361.00-1,362.00 dollars.
