Asian markets open weaker


With Tokyo on holidays, Asian markets were lower in early trade Thursday

SYDNEY, Australia -- Asian markets were mainly lower in morning trade Thursday, with both Australian and Korea down. Tokyo was closed for the vernal equinox holiday.

Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore also opened easier, although Taiwan was moving in and out of the black near the break.

In Australia, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index lost 29.2 points, or 0.8 percent, to 3,438.1 by noon as the Australian dollar traded at eight-month highs of 53.05 U.S. cents.

Shares in market heavyweight News Corp fell 2.0 percent to A$13.48. The media company gets most of its revenue from the U.S.

Leading telco Telstra lost 1.48 percent to A$5.32 after it came under attack from the competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, over what the ACCC said was anti-competitive treatment of wholesale broadband customers.

Korean chipmakers down

In Seoul, the benchmark Kospi index was slightly lower, off 0.69 points or 0.08 percent to 886.81, after dropping as low as 875.

Telco leaders SK Telecom and KT Corp were higher, but chipmaker and market heavyweight Samsung Electronics eased 1.7 percent to 343,000 won.

Rival Hynix Semiconductor, which observers say is close to finalizing the drawn-out sale of its memory chip operations to U.S. company Micron Technology, was off 2.7 percent to 1425 won.

In Taiwan, the Taiex was down 4 points to 6054 after its recent surge, while Singapore's Straits Times index was down about half a percent to 1791 in early trade.

Taiwan's two top contract chipmakers, TSMC, lost 1 percent to T$95.00 and 1.9 percent to T$51.00 respectively.

SingTel was off 1.23 percent to S$1.60 and banking leader DBS eased 0.7 percent to S$14.40.

BHP, Rio Tinto easier

In Australia, resources conglomerate BHP Billiton lost 1.9 percent to A$11.54, while rival Rio Tinto was down 2.3 percent to A$38.39.

"The Australian dollar's quite strong overnight so a lot of the stocks that trade offshore -- News Corp, BHP, Rio, Brambles -- were all weaker in relative terms, some of the resources companies were down significantly anyway," BT Funds Management dealer Jason Hackett told Reuters news agency.

Shares in Macquarie Bank, which earns fees from its Macquarie Infrastructure Group offshoot, rose 0.7 percent to A$33.95. MIG has announced a $520 million capital raising to fund its acquisition of a higher stake in the Canadian roll road 407.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down about 156 points or 1.4 percent to 10,874 in late morning trade.