Asian shares fall amid ongoing Libya fighting

Asian shares fell Thursday, weighed down by ongoing fighting in Libya and a lackluster finish by Wall Street.



Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average was off 1.1 percent at 10,473.81, with nearly all sectors in negative territory.



Toyota Motor Corp. tumbled more than 2 percent, and major bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. fell 1.6 percent.



Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index retreated 0.4 percent to 23,722.14.



South Korea’s Kospi extended losses after the central bank raised its key interest rate for the second time in three months Thursday. The index fell 1.2 percent to 1,978.41 in late morning trading.

John Dowd, (R) lawyer for Galleon hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam, speaks to the media outside Manhattan Federal Court after opening arguments in the insider trading case in New York March 9, 2011. Prosecution and defense lawyers painted starkly different portraits of Rajaratnam a Sri Lankan-born, one-time billionaire, at the start of the biggest Wall Street insider trading case in a generation. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid (UNITED STATES – Tags: CRIME LAW BUSINESS)

Benchmarks in Australia, Taiwan, Singapore and mainland China also lost ground.



Bucking the trend was New Zealand’s main stock index, which edged up less than 0.1 percent to 3,414.90 after the country’s central bank cut its key interest rate to 2.5 percent from 3.0 percent. It described the decision as a pre-emptive move to soften the economic impact of last month’s destructive earthquake in the city of Christchurch.



In New York on Wednesday, stocks slipped as crude oil prices hovered near $104 a barrel, continuing a three-week run of high prices that economists say could slow the economic recovery.



Fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi set two oil installations ablaze and inflicted yet more damage on the country’s crippled energy industry.



The Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.29, or less than 0.1 percent, to 12,213.09.



The broader S&P index lost 1.80 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 1,320.02. The Nasdaq composite fell 14.05, or 0.5 percent, to 2,751.72.



In currencies, the dollar rose to 82.76 yen from 82.70 yen late Wednesday. The euro stood at $1.3916 from $1.3904.



Benchmark crude for April delivery rose 41 cents to $104.79 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 64 cents to settle at $104.38 a barrel Wednesday.

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Posted by VBN on Mar 11 2011. Filed under Enterprises. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry