Asian markets fall across the board (MarketWatch) (12-06-2008)

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Shares slumped throughout the Asia Pacific region on Thursday with Chinese shares in Shanghai suffering losses that brought the benchmark stock index to below half its value of the past year's record high. Investors are concerned that the lower inflation figure released will only bring temporary relief.

In Japan shares slumped on rising inflation fears due to high oil prices, which hurt real estate companies, while exporters tumbled on a stronger yen.

On mainland China, the Shanghai Composite lost 2.21% to 2,957.53, dropping below the psychologically-important 3,000-point level for the first time in more than a year. At its latest level, the index has lost nearly 45% of its value in 2008 so far, and more than half its value from its record high of 6,092.06 in October.

The decline came in spite of data, which showed that the country's consumer price index rose 7.7% in May from the year-ago month, compared with an increase of 8.5% in April.

The Nikkei 225 Average tumbled 2.3% to 13,861.70, after rising as much as 1.2% in the previous session, while the broader Topix index gave up 2.1% to 1,360.61.

Recovering late in afternoon trading, the Hang Seng Index ended down by 1.71%% to 22,928.57, while the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index lost 3.2% to 12,303.23.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 dropped 2.3% to 5,343.30 and New Zealand's NZX 50 index slipped 1.1% to 3,449.96, while South Korea's Kospi shed 1.8% to 1,750.41. Taiwan's Weighted index gave up 2.2% to 8,160, while Singapore's Straits Times index lost 1.9% to 2,988.51.

Financials dropped across the region after an overnight decline on Wall Street, with Macquarie Group sinking 5.9% in Sydney and Industrial Bank of Korea losing 4.5% in Seoul, while Mizuho Financial Groupdropping 3.5% in Tokyo. HSBC Holdings lost 2% in Hong Kong, while DBS Group Holdings gave up 2% in Singapore.

Among exporters, shares of Toyota dropped 2.2% and Sony Corp. stock lost 2.8%, as the yen strengthened against the U.S. dollar.

Source MarketWatch