Asian Stocks Start Off Friday Down

The negative sentiment is carrying over to Asia today with Japan’s Nikkei 225 (^N225) Stock Average down 2.5% to 10,283.78.  The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 1.5% to 116.80 as of 9:58 a.m. in Tokyo and the day is just getting started.

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks dropped, led by finance and mining companies, after Nomura Holdings Inc. said it will sell new shares, sales of existing homes unexpectedly declined in the U.S. and commodity prices fell.

Nomura, Japan’s largest brokerage, had yet to trade though was being bid lower in Tokyo. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., the nation’s biggest publicly traded bank, slid 4.8 percent. Honda Motor Co., which gets 47 percent of its sales in North America, lost 2.2 percent. BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, sank 2.3 percent in Sydney.

SOURCE: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5wn0rKqNziY