Asian stocks fell, dragged down by uncertainty over a possible Spanish bailout, though Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy ruled out such a possibility. Also weighing on the stock markets is uncertainty about global growth in a period in which investors await important news arriving at the end of the week.
THEMSCI Asia Pacific index it fell 0,2 percent to 121.80 as of 9:10 am in Tokyo. Chinese markets remain closed for holidays, while Hong Kong restarted late in the day.
"It's hard to do 'shopping' ahead of the release of US jobs data and meetings of the ECB and the Japanese central bank," said Masayuki Doshida, senior market analyst at Rakuten Securities.
US data is coming over the weekend, while European Central Bank officials will meet on Thursday. The BOJ will also begin a two-day meeting on Thursday. We are therefore in a waiting period, where we probably won't see large purchases or sales. However, it is also a period of great fragility in which, Doshida explains, the market could overreact to data normally considered not very important such as those on Australian trade, waiting at the end of the day. In fact, investors fear more bad news on the Canberra export front, in particular with regard to the sale of raw materials such as metals and coal to China.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/02/markets-japan-stocks-idUSL3E8L28F720121002
