Asian Stocks Fall for 4th Day; Commodity, Chip Shares Decline

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks fell, dragging the MSCI Asia Pacific Index to its longest losing streak in more than four months, after Merrill Lynch & Co. cut its outlook on the global semiconductor industry and commodities retreated.

Advantest Corp., the world’s biggest maker of memory-chip testers, lost 2.6 percent in Tokyo. Sony Corp., the maker of the PlayStation 3 game machine, slid 2.8 percent after pushing back its profitability targets by two years. BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, slid 1.6 percent, snapping a four-day advance, after oil and metal prices fell.

“It seems investors are rushing to sell off stocks,” said Juichi Wako, a senior strategist at Tokyo-based Nomura Holdings Inc. “Since sentiment is bad, any news could drag shares lower.”

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.3 percent to 117.14 as of 10:02 a.m. in Tokyo. The gauge is headed for a fourth day of declines, the longest losing streak since July 8. The index has dropped 0.9 percent this week.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average retreated 0.4 percent. The S&P/ASX 200 Index dropped 1.3 percent in Sydney.

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dipped 0.1 percent. The index retreated 1.3 percent yesterday, the most since Oct. 30. Intel Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc., the second-largest U.S. chipmaker, slumped after Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit cut its ratings on the chipmakers.

OECD Forecasts

“There’s a growing disparity between supply growth and consumption, therefore the downside risk to earnings is increasing,” Dan Heyler, Hong Kong-based head of Asian semiconductor research, said yesterday. “We think the supply chain will be aggressively replenished through to March.”

He cut Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest custom chipmaker, to “neutral” from “buy,” and United Microelectronics Corp. to “underperform” from “buy.”

Crude oil for December delivery retreated for the fist time in four days yesterday, plunging 2.7 percent to $77.46 a barrel in New York. The London Metals Index, a measure of six metals including copper and zinc, sank 1.5 percent.

Stocks around the world have rallied since March amid signs the global economy is recovering from its worst slowdown since World War II. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development doubled its growth forecast for the leading developed economies next year to 1.9 percent, the Paris-based organization said in a report yesterday.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index has climbed 31 percent in 2009, outpacing gains of 21 percent by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and 24 percent for Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index. Stocks in the Asian gauge are valued at 22 times estimated earnings, compared with 17 times for the S&P and 15 times for the Stoxx.