|
||||||||
  |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Oil nerves push Asian markets down
Staff and wires
SYDNEY, Australia -- Higher oil prices are driving markets across Asia broadly lower heading into Monday afternoon, with Seoul's Kospi off a sharp 3.1 percent. Japan's financial markets are closed Monday for the autumn equinox public holiday. South Korea was closed last Friday. Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan are all firmly in the red, though their falls are not as severe as those of Korea, which relies heavily on imported oil. In electronic trade in Asia Monday, war fever has driven U.S. oil prices to a 19-month high of $30.45 a barrel on the growing prospect of a U.S. assault on Iraq. (Full story) In Seoul, a broad-based retreat has seen market heavyweight Samsung Electronics dip 3.13 percent to 324,500 won. Investor favorite SK Telecom is down 2.6 percent to 226,500 won. The country's biggest automaker Hyundai, which reached agreeement with DaimlerChrysler last week on a joint truck venture, is down about 3 percent to 325,000 won. (Full story)
Big steelmaker Posco is one of the heaviest losers, down 6.36 percent to 110,500 won. In Australia, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index has lost 21.9 points or 0.71 percent to 3052.4 on concerns about the U.K. capital position of the country's largest life insurer and fund manager, AMP. Also weighing on the market is a downbeat report on the impact of drought on Australia's agricultural production. New low for AMPAMP emerged from Friday's trading halt to be down another 2.3 percent Monday afternoon at a fresh low of A$11.57, off 27 cents. At one point in the morning it touched A$11.25. (Full story) Media group News Corp, telco Telstra and resources major BHP Billiton have also lost ground.
Late on Friday AMP told the Australian Stock Exchange that it needed to make another £500 million ($830 million) available to support its Pearl fund in the U.K. That is on top of a A$1 billion ($550 million) injection earlier this year. News Corp, the market's biggest stock, is down 2.66 percent to A$9.16, BHP Billiton is down 1.31 percent to A$9.04 and Telstra has fallen 0.84 percent to A$4.71. An unconfirmed report in the Australian Financial Review says the federal government is considering selling all of its 50.1 percent holding in Telstra in one hit next year, instead of the expected three-stage selloff between 2003 and 2005. Most of the big banks are also lower, with only Commonwealth Bank in the black, up 0.2 percent to A$31.77. New Zealand's Top 40 is down 0.72 percent to 2005.9. Telecom NZ is off 4 cents to NZ$4.78. In Singapore, the Straits Times is 0.66 percent lower to 1411.57 near midday. Most bluechips are either flat or slightly lower. SingTel is down 2 percent to S$1.44 and DBS Bank is off 1.6 percent to S$12.10. Taiwan's Taiex is down 1.5 percent to 4363.14. The big losers are in the industrial sector, with Formosa Plastic off almost 7 percent to T$33.60 and Nan Ya Plastic down by a similar amount to T$28.10. Plastic prices have slipped in recent weeks. The market's biggest stock, chip foundry TSMC, is down 1.4 percent to T$42.90. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index is down about 0.8 percent to 9255.52, dragged down by falls in conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, mobile phone twins China Mobile and China Unicom and property giant Sun Hung Kai Properties. Computer maker Legend is a rare gainer, up almost 1 percent to Hk$2.775. Offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC is slightly in the black, as is Petrochina. Fed meets TuesdayGlobally, financial markets are expected to tread water ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve rate-setting meeting on Tuesday. The Fed's risk assessment is likely to tilt further towards economic weakness, although the key fed funds rate is widely expected to be left at 1.75 percent. On Wall Street, the key indices closed in positive territory on Friday but logged their fourth negative week in a row after profit warnings from Electronic Data Systems, financial giant J.P. Morgan Chase and others. For the week, the Dow slipped 3.9 percent and the Nasdaq lost 5.5 percent. (Full story) Reuters contributed to this report.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
