Asia falls amid downbeat tech
 |
Intel forecast lower sales in the first quarter.
Story Tools
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
|
Follow the news that matters to you. Create your own alert to be notified on topics you're interested in.
Or, visit Popular Alerts for suggestions.
|
|
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -- Asian stocks fell on Thursday and U.S. technology shares were expected to follow after downbeat sales forecasts from Intel Corp and other major tech firms offset healthy earnings reports.
But losses might be curbed by International Business Machines Corp, which rose in after-hours trade after bringing forward its quarterly earnings report to 1230 GMT from next week.
The dollar steadied, riding on an unexpectedly narrow U.S. trade gap in November, but this failed to ease concerns among Japanese investors that the yen's resilience would hit exports.
Japan's Nikkei average dropped 1.8 percent to 10,665.15, wiping out all its gains so far this year.
An MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shed 0.4 percent as shares in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Taiwan fell, but the index is still near its highest level in almost four years.
Shares in Intel, the world's top microchip maker, dropped three percent in after-hours trade after it forecast lower sales in the first quarter following a sharp rise in fourth-quarter revenue and earnings.
Apple Computer Inc and Yahoo Inc also fell after the close of trade on a mixed bag of earnings and outlooks.
"Even though the numbers are coming in pretty strong, it may be hard for the market to sustain a rally to new multiples," said John Davidson, president and CEO at PartnerRe Asset Management.
"We've had a strong run to a pretty high level of (price-to-earnings) ratios."
The Nasdaq-100 After Hours Indicator fell 0.6 percent, pointing to a weaker start for the technology sector on Thursday.
Samsung steady
Shares in South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Asia's most valuable electronics company, were steady near record highs after the company posted a 24 percent jump in quarterly profit, undershooting analysts' forecasts. (Full story)
Seoul's benchmark index fell 0.5 percent.
Japanese chip-related shares followed U.S. tech stocks lower, led by Tokyo Electron, which lost around three percent, while its peer Advantest Corp sank 3.6 percent.
NTT DoCoMo Inc fell 2.9 percent after a newspaper report that DoCoMo and Nextel Communications Inc may bid for control of AT&T Wireless Services Inc.
Koichi Seki, equity manager at Chuo Securities, said investors appeared to have been switching from telecoms shares to electronics issues, ahead of an expected change in the weighting of stocks in the Tokyo Stock Exchange's TOPIX index.
"There are concerns about selling in the telecoms sector as the TSE tries to change the way it calculates the weightings of TOPIX components," he said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.1 percent and the technology-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.7 percent on Wednesday after data showed the U.S. trade deficit in November was the smallest in 13 months and there was little evidence of emerging inflation.
Copyright 2004
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
