Asian stocks fell for a third day after U.S. President Barack Obamasaid the government is “running out of time” in negotiating an agreement to cut the fiscal deficit, hurting the outlook for Asian exporters.
Samsung Electronics Co., South Korea’s biggest exporter of consumer electronics, slipped 1.9 percent in Seoul. HTC Corp., the Taiwanese maker of smartphones, sank 4.6 percent after a U.S. International Trade Commission ruled it infringed on two patents of Apple Inc. News Corp. slumped 6.4 percent as the scandal over phone hacking at the now defunct News of the World widened with the arrest of editor Rebekah Brooks.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Excluding Japan Index declined 0.5 percent to 473.73 as of 10:07 a.m. in Hong Kong, with two stocks falling for each that rose. The measure dropped for the first week in four last week after European finance ministers declined to rule out a temporary default for Greece and as Moody’s Investors Service put the U.S. under review for a possible credit-rating downgrade.
“Getting the debt ceiling question resolved” is crucial for stock markets in the region to gain traction, said Matt Riordan, who helps manage close to $7 billion in Sydney at Paradice Investment Management Pty. “There’s a lot of political posturing going on at the moment, and you’d hope that cool heads will prevail.”
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index slipped 0.1 percent. South Korea’s Kospi Index dropped 0.7 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed 0.1 percent after falling 0.7 percent. China’s Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.2 percent. Japanese markets were closed for a public holiday.
Bloomberg