Japanese, Australian Stock Futures Drop on European Debt Crisis






Japanese and Australian stock futures fell amid a global rout on concern the European debt crisis will spread and halt the global recovery.

American depositary receipts of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Japan’s biggest bank by market value, finished 4 percent lower than the Tokyo close yesterday. ADRs of Canon Inc., a Japanese camera maker that counts Europe as its largest market, lost 5.4 percent as the euro weakened against the yen. ADRs of BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s No. 1 mining company, sank 2.6 percent in Sydney as commodity prices tumbled.

“Investors are worried about whether the debt issues will be limited to the euro area,” said Juichi Wako, a strategist at Tokyo-based Nomura Holdings Inc. “There’s concern that the avoidance of spending money on risk assets will spread.”

Yen-denominated futures on Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average expiring in June closed at 10,175 yesterday in Chicago, 4.5 percent lower than 10,655 in Singapore. They were bid in the pre-market at 10,190 as of 8:02 a.m. in Japan. The Nikkei 225 closed at 10,695.69 yesterday, its biggest drop since March 2009.

Futures on Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index slid 3.8 percent today. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index fell 1.5 percent in Wellington.

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 0.6 percent. The index yesterday fell as much as 8.6 percent, its biggest plunge since December 2008, before ending down 3.2 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 1.5 percent.