Asia watch

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Other regional markets received an even bigger bruising as events in Argentina added to the list of concerns making investors reluctant to hold stock ahead of the long weekend. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index lost nearly 4%, while both Taiwan and South Korea were similarly bashed as tech stocks fell in line with the 5% overnight slump in the Philadelphia Semiconductor index. This followed a profit warning from Juniper Networks which raised further doubts about the validity of predictions that the corner has been turned for electronics companies.

In Japan, as the yen plumbed three-year lows on foreign exchange markets, an early warning signal of another contraction in gross domestic product emerged. A fall of 0.4% in the index, which measures all industrial output and is a leading indicator of GDP performance, plus a Reuters survey showing that industrial production is reckoned to have dropped by 1.1% in November, confirmed the unremitting deepening of the economic crisis.

Japanese semiconductor stocks reeled after the Nasdaq fall. Tokyo Electron was worst hit, falling more than 8%, while chip giant NEC lost more than 2% of its value.

Similar damage was being done to chip makers in Taiwan and South Korea, where the Argentinian crisis also sparked defensive action by emerging market funds. Big chipmakers continued to retrace the recent rally based on hopes of a big tech turnaround, and with Samsung Electronics leading the way with a fall of almost 4% the Kospi shed 20.08 points to 644.43.

Taiwan Semiconductor dived almost 6%, and was punished further by reports that the government is planning to offload a large slice of its stake in the company. This left the Weighted Average down a hefty 199.86 points at 5109.24.

Hong Kong's three-day rally came to an abrupt halt as the Hang Seng index lost 443 points at 11,158.1. The major casualty was HSBC Holdings, which plunged more than 3% as investors fretted about the size of the group's exposure to Argentinian debt, and its ownership of one of the crippled South American country's major banks. Cathay Pacific Airlines' stock hit a bad patch after a steady ascent following the 11 September fallout, and dropped by more than 5%.

Sydney investors were the only players in a good holiday mood, and in thin trading the All Ordinaries index gained 88.4 to 3374.5. Plans to restructure Commonwealth Bank lifted the stock by 1.6%, but the benefit to the market was countered by a fall of 1% in News Corporation stocks on US earnings fears. Resource stocks dipped on falling oil prices.

South-East Asian markets all drooped on the Nasdaq fall. Singapore's Straits Times index was down 16.2 points to 1577.1 while in Malaysia, the Kuala Lumpur Composite shed 1.08 points to 661.37,Thailand's SET fell 1.15 points at 296.77, and Indonesia's Jakarta Composite drifted off 0.69 points to 377.14.

Prices and indices in this section are supplied from various sources and calculated at different times and may not always match those listed on the site.