Asia opens lower after U.S. tumbles

Staff and wires

TOKYO, Japan -- Asian stocks have opened lower Tuesday after yet another heavy fall on Wall Street took the Dow Jones industrial average to a four-year low Monday.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 average opened 77 points lower at 10,102.46 and is down more than 1.4 percent to 10,045 in the first hour of trade.

The broader capital weighted Topix index is down about 1.15 percent to 980.01.

Markets in Australia, South Korea and New Zealand are all in the red.

Australia'S S&P/ASX200 off about 0.88 percent, New Zealand's Top 40 is down about 0.7 percent and the Kospi in Seoul is about 0.6 percent easier.

South Korea was Asia's worst performing market on Monday, losing more than 4.5 percent on sharp falls in big tech stocks such as Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom.

These two stocks are down again Tuesday.

Japan largely held the line Monday against the U.S. declines, finishing relatively unchanged as gains by big banks offset tech falls.

Sony, Toyota lower

But in early Tuesday trade, exporters such as Sony and Toyota are weaker, sending the Nikkei down to near the 10,000-point level.

Consumer electronics giant Sony has slipped 3.15 percent to 5220 yen and Toyota, Japan's biggest automaker, is down 2.51 percent to 2915 yen.

Mobile phone leader NTT DoCoMo is down 1.9 percent to 259,000 yen.

Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group, regarded as the healthiest of the big banks, is up about half a percent to 865,000 yen.

Japanese exporters are vulnerable because of fears that a continuing U.S. bear market will hit consumer confidence there.

That in turn could depress demand for the exports that have been leading Japan out of its worst post-war recession.

Dow closes below 8000

The Dow Jones Industrial average sank 2.93 percent to 7784.58 on Monday as investors worried over poor earnings and corporate scandals such as the WorldCom bankruptcy. It was the Dow's first close under the 8000 level since October 1998.

But some traders see global equity markets as nearing the bottom.

"The Nasdaq slipped below 1,300 yesterday and that means the market has returned to the level when Federal Reserve Chairman (Alan) Greenspan warned of inflated U.S. stock prices as 'irrational exuberance' in 1996," Tsuyoshi Segawa, equity strategist at Shinko Securities, told Reuters news agency.

"Once the Nikkei falls below 10,000, institutional buying may emerge, as happened yesterday," he said.

In Australia, blue chips are broadly lower, with only Telstra just into the black at A$4.75. Market heavyweight News Corp, which makes most of its sales in the United States, is continuing to decline.

It is off another 18 cents or 1.83 percent to A$9.09, another four-year low.

Resources giant Rio Tinto is down 1.6 percent to A$33.45.