Japanese stocks fell for a fourth week, with the benchmark average dropping to a 20-year low.
Exporters such as TDK Corp led declines amid concerns that a US-led war with Iraq will damp overseas demand for their goods.
"Domestic investors are selling shares outright to reduce their risk as a war with Iraq could hurt the US economy," said Xinyi Lu, chief strategist at UFJ Bank Ltd in Tokyo. "Lower consumer demand in the US from a war will be very negative for Japanese exporters."
The Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 1.7 percent for the week, while the Topix index fell 1.3 percent. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc had a record drop on concern the Nikkei's dip below 8000 would force lenders to book wider losses on stock holdings.
South Korean stocks slid for a third week after a probe into SK Group's accounting prompted US$4 billion of redemptions from mutual funds. Kookmin Bank and other lenders to SK companies led the drop. The KOSPI index shed 1.5 percent for the week.
The TAIEX Index gained 2.9 percent this week, its biggest weekly advance in seven weeks. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.6 percent. Citic Pacific Ltd gained after the Hong Kong arm of China's biggest investment company said it will pay a special dividend.
In Japan, TDK slid 7.5 percent for the week and was the heaviest drag on the Nikkei. Japan's largest maker of magnetic parts for hard disk drives gets as much as two-thirds of its sales from abroad. Tokyo Electron Ltd, the world's No. 1 maker of chip-production equipment, dropped 2.6 percent this week. The company's shares were the second-biggest drag on the Nikkei.
Sumitomo Mitsui, the world's fourth-largest lender by assets, declined 6.8 percent this week. The bank was the third-heaviest drag on the Nikkei. Sumitomo Mitsui and six rival banks' investment losses rose more than fourfold to ¥5.8 trillion as of March 7, from a year ago, Daiwa Institute of Research said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last