Asian Stocks Fall; Kookmin Bank, Takeda Pharmaceutical Decline

Asian stocks fell, dragging a key regional index from a record, after Kookmin Bank reported earnings that missed analyst estimates and Baoshan Iron & Steel Co.'s profit decreased for the first time in more than a year.

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Asia's biggest drugmaker, plunged the most in 20 years because of delays developing a new drug. Kookmin, South Korea's largest lender, had its biggest slide in two weeks. Toshiba Corp., which reported earnings yesterday after markets closed, fell as UBS AG and CLSA Asia- Pacific Markets cut their ratings on the stock.

``The market now is moving based on earnings reports, and when a company releases some weak figures it always causes a flood of selling,'' said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees $468 million at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co. in Tokyo.

The Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia-Pacific Index slid 0.3 percent to 171.16 as of 3:03 p.m. in Tokyo, with six of 10 industry groups declining. Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 0.3 percent to 16,651.01. Benchmarks declined elsewhere in the region except in China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia and New Zealand.

Speculation that Asia's corporate earnings growth would outpace the rest of the world's helped boost indexes in Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia and India to records yesterday, making some investors wary that share prices had risen too far, too fast. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index is now valued at 21 times earnings, its highest ratio in at least five years, Bloomberg data show.

hotstock-market.com