Asian stocks plummeted Thursday on worries about the dollar's weakness, rising credit-related losses and record oil prices, according to dpa. The biggest losses were seen in India and in Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng Index fell 4.79 per cent to 22,301.64 as a flu outbreak that prompted the closure of primary schools and kindergartens added to investor pessimism. Stocks in Tokyo hit their lowest levels since August 2005 as the dollar fell below 100 yen for the first time in more than 12 years, hitting export-oriented shares. Toyota Motor Corp, nearly 60 per cent of whose sales come from abroad, was among the day's big decliners because a stronger yen lowers the value of Japanese firms' overseas revenues. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average tumbled 3.33 per cent to close at 12,433.44 while the broader Topix index of all first-section issues declined 3.13 per cent to 1,215.87. A reason for the dollar's fall was the announcement by a Carlyle Group fund that it was unable to reach an agreement to reschedule its overdue debt and it expected lenders to "promptly" seize more than 16.6 billion dollars of its assets, which would send it into insolvency. The news caused speculation to rise that there would be more such announcements in the future and continuing credit-market losses would send the economy in the United States, Asia's biggest export market, into recession. Analysts said a further contribution to the declines was Wall Street's losses overnight after US-based banks said the Federal Reserve's injection of another 200 billion dollars into the financial system might not free up credit. "It doesn't fix the US' economic woes by creating new jobs and generating income for households to spend," agreed Kevin Scully, managing director of NetResearch Asia in Singapore. Banks and exporters were among the biggest decliners around the region Thursday. Other Asian markets seeing big losses were Singapore's Straits Times Index with a 3.85-per-cent plunge to 2,805.55, Taiwan's Taiex index with a 2.66-per-cent decline to 8,210.99 and South Korea's Kospi at a 2.6-per-cent fall to 1,615.62. Australia's ASX 200 Index fell 2.32 per cent to 5,135.9 on expectations of a 13th-straight interest rate increase after unemployment there fell to a 33-year low of 4 per cent in February. In mainland China, investors continued to worry about possible interest rate hikes and government measures to control record inflation, sending the Shanghai Composite Index down 2.43 per cent to 3,971.26 and the Shenzhen Composite Index down 3.3 per cent to 1,248.19. Indian markets witnessed a major downswing, with the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark 30-share Sensex at one point touching a six-month low. The Sensex, which opened on a weak note, closed at 15,357.35, down 770.63 points, or 4.78 per cent, on its previous close. The benchmark index fell for the first time in three days, with 29 of its 30 stocks trading in the red. The wider 50-share Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange also dropped by 248.40 points, down by 5.10 per cent, to close at 4,623.60 as most of the heavyweight stocks led by banking sector lost major ground. South-East Asian indices also declined, the Jakarta Composite Index by 4.52 per cent, the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index by 2.53 per cent and the Stock Exchange of Thailand Index by 1.53 per cent.
