Reply #49: Asian Stocks Decline After China Tells Banks to Cool Lending

[Ghost Dog]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=afu5WEskyvPM&refer=asia

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks fell, led by China Mobile Ltd. and Mitsui & Co., after Chinese regulators told banks to cool lending that has fueled the world's fastest economic expansion.

China Mobile, the world's largest mobile-phone operator by users, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the nation's biggest lender, dropped for a third day in Hong Kong. Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsui, Japan's two largest trading companies, slid to the lowest in more than two months in Tokyo.

``What is Asian growth without China?'' said Leslie Phang, who helps oversee $1 billion at Commonwealth Private Bank in Singapore. ``If China goes, everything else goes.''

The Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia Pacific Index lost 0.5 percent to 157.52 as of 5:10 p.m. in Tokyo, bringing this month's drop to 8 percent. Seven of the measure's 10 industry groups fell today.

Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average declined 0.7 percent to 15,042.56. Benchmarks slid across the region except in Australia, the Philippines and India. New Zealand's was little changed.

BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group led a 1.1 percent advance in Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index after BHP's chief executive officer said the majority of shareholders he had met supported a plan to combine the two companies.

China Mobile lost 1.1 percent to HK$131.80 in Hong Kong, the biggest contributor to the drop in the city's Hang Seng Index. Industrial & Commercial Bank fell 1.2 percent to HK$6. China Vanke Co., the nation's biggest listed property developer, slid 4 percent to 32.93 yuan in Shenzhen.

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