Asian markets decline despite Wall Street\'s gains

Tag : Non-ferrous Metal
(RTTNews) - The stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region weretrading lower on Tuesday after Wall Street closed a volatiletrading session with moderate gains overnight on the back of a fallin crude oil prices. Oil finished the New York session below $115,as fears of easing demand and a stronger dollar offset concernsabout the conflict between Russia and Georgia. In the Asian sessionTuesday, oil is holding steady around Monday's closing levels.

On the currency front, the U.S. dollar gained on expectations thatthe U.S. slowdown was spreading to other economies. In early Tokyodeals, the dollar was quoted in the lower 110-yen levels comparedto upper 109-yen levels late Monday. In South Korean local trade,the dollar opened lower at 1,030.0 won. The Australian dollarextended its losses for a tenth consecutive trading session afteropening lower at US$0.8838-0.8843. The kiwi was trading weaker atUS$0.6975 in early local deals.

The Japanese stock market was trading in negative territory onprofit taking following the sharp gains on Monday. At 9.54 P.M. ET,the benchmark Nikkei 225 Index was losing 106.43 points or 0.78% to13,324.48, while the broader Topix Index of all First SectionIssues was declining 1.47 points to 1,278.53.

In economic news, the price of corporate goods in Japan jumped 7.1%in July from a year ago, growing at its fastest rate since 1981,the Bank of Japan said on Tuesday. That was sharply higher than the5.7% annual increase that analysts had been expecting, and it wasalso higher than the 5.6% gain in June. On a monthly basis,corporate prices were up 2.0%, sharply higher than the 0.8%increase in June that was also the forecast for July.

Later in the afternoon, Japan will provide June data for industrialproduction and capacity utilization, as well as July readings forconsumer confidence.

Steel and non-ferrous metal stocks were among the major decliners.Sumitomo Metal Industries fell 2.32%, Nippon Steel lost 2.22% andSumitomo Metal Mining slid 3.46%.

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