Monday, October 6, 2008

Asian Markets Fall Sharpely in Trading Tuesday; Nikkei Down 5.3 Percent

Markets across Asia and the western Pacific Rim opened trading Tuesday with stiff declines, continuing the large sellout experienced on Wall Street on Monday.

The Nikkei average in Japan lost 5.3 percent of its value in the first half an hour of trading to drop below 10,000 for the first time since 2003. The Shanghai composite was down by 4.6 percent but has regain ground. Hong Kong markets are closed for a holiday.

The central banks of Japan and Australia together added more than $11 billion to their financial systems to try to ease the tight credit markets. They hoped to move would make it easier for banks to borrow from each other, and at the same time bring money market interest rates down from near record highs.

The yen weakened a little to 102.01 to the dollar. The Australian dollar fell as far as 70.87 cents to the U.S. dollar. Gold was slightly higher at $864.62 a troy ounce and oil was steady at about $88.90 a barrel in Singapore.

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