Asian Stocks Fall; Sony Corp, UMC Slide on Merrill Lynch Report
By Tomoko Yamazaki
quote.bloomberg.com
Tokyo, May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks fell, led by Sony Corp., United Microelectronics Corp. and other computer-related companies, after Merrill Lynch & Co. said their U.S. rivals will have ``anemic'' profit growth.
Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average fell 0.5 percent, retreating from a 10-week high. Taiwan's TWSE Index lost 2.4 percent, South Korea's Kospi index shed 3.3 percent. Merrill's chief U.S. strategist Richard Bernstein said investors should sell U.S. technology stocks following last week's rally.
``We have been struggling to think where the growth is going to come from at technology companies,'' said Barry Dargan, a managing director of MFS Investment Management in Tokyo, which handles about $1 billion in Japanese equities.
In other markets, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index had its biggest decline in two months, dropping 1.8 percent after Standard & Poor's Corp. cut the credit ratings or outlooks of the city's major developers. India's Sensitive index dropped 4.7 percent, poised for its biggest decline in eight months, amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan.
The MSCI Asia Free Information Technology Index, which measures 119 companies around the region, slid 1.2 percent. It had gained as much as 15 percent in the past three months on optimism demand in the U.S., Asia's largest trading partner, will rebound, boosting profits.
Japan
The Nikkei fell 55.38 to 11,801.16, snapping a five-day, 4.6 percent advance. Computer-related stocks made up most of the Topix index's decline of 0.1 percent to 1116.36.
Sony, the maker of Vaio computers, lost 0.8 percent to 7,190 yen. Advantest Corp., the world's biggest maker of equipment used in the process of making computer memory chips, declined 1.1 percent to 9,050 yen. |
