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Missile test rocks Asian stocks
TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Japanese stocks are under pressure Tuesday morning, following a sharp fall on Wall Street and confirmation that North Korea test-fired a missile into the Sea of Japan. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 average is down 1.05 percent to 8,474.76 after tumbling to a two-week intraday low of 8,444. The broader Topix index is also down more than 1 percent, off 1.03 percent to 830.31. Markets in South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are also responding negatively to the latest security developments. In Seoul, the Kospi is down more than 2.2 percent to 602.30, with market heavyweight Samsung Electronics off sharply, down more than 4 percent to 297,000 won. Australia's S&P/ASX200 is off about 1.6 percent after a massive profit slide for wine group Southcorp. As well, the market's biggest stock, News Corp, is down almost 4 percent on Wall Street's weakness. In New Zealand, the NZSE Top 40 is 1.45 percent lower at 1875.48. Missile report confirmed
South Korea's Defence Ministry confirmed Tuesday morning the missile test report, which initially appeared in a South Korean newspaper. The U.S. Defence Department also confirmed the test had taken place. "The yen took a hit on the missile report. A weaker yen is of course positive for stocks, but not under these circumstances," Masayoshi Okamoto of Jujiya Securities told Reuters news agency. Most Japanese blue-chip exporters are lower, but analysts had been expecting them to lose ground anyway following a two percent decline in the U.S. Dow Jones average and the dollar's fall to a one-month low of 117.55 yen in New York. Honda Motor, Japan's second-largest automaker, is down 1.14 percent at 4,330 yen, while consumer electronics giant Sony is off 0.87 percent to 4,540 yen. Earlier, Sony hit a 16-month low of 4,510 yen. Big banks are mainly lower as is industrial giant Nippon Steel, down almost 2 percent to 152 yen. Mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo, the market's biggest stock, is 1.3 percent lower at 230,000 yen. Sumitomo Rubber Industries has put on 2.16 percent to 474 yen after Japan's third-largest tiremaker said on Monday it returned to the black in 2002 with a record group net profit on brisk exports, a weak yen and cost-cutting. In Australia, News Corp is 3.93 percent lower at A$10.51, while telecom leader Telstra is at another five-year low of A$41.2, down 1.44 percent. Wine group Southcorp, which reported a 97 percent fall in first-half net profit Tuesday morning on poor U.K. sales, is down more than 16 percent to A$3.70 as investors dump the stock. In Seoul, reports of a missile test are spoiling the mood for the inauguration Tuesday of President Roh Moo-hyun. The market is broadly lower, with big exporter Hyundai Motor down 2.4 percent to 26,350 won and KT Corp off 3.23 percent o 46,400 won. Investor favorite SK Telecom is down about 2 percent to 170,500 won. The mobile phone company is part of the SK Group, which saw its vice-chairman Chey Tae-won arrested and jailed at the weekend on illegal stock trading charges. Reuters contributed to this report.
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