Asian stocks lower on talk US Fed holding emergency meeting

SYDNEY, Jan. 15, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- Asian stock markets were lower Wednesday on talk the US Federal Reserve was holding an emergency meeting.

'There's talk about a Fed meeting - that's what the futures people are telling us but then again it makes sense for them to wait for the December CPI figures out tonight,' said Ric Klusman, head of institutional trading at Aequs Securities.

There is a general belief that the US is heading for a recession, making action by the Fed necessary though it will unlikely improve sentiment, he said.

'If you are unemployed, then an interest rate cut is not going to help much,' said Klusman.
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That doesn't sound very good at all

http://money.cnn.com//news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-22280033.htm

have nothing to do with the over 3% for both major Asian indices... no siree!

:sarcasm:

tommorrow is going to get interesting

and many of us, paying attention, knew this was the case.

Of course, I am amazed the announcement did not come on a news dump friday

they have been cooking the books but they can`t hide it any longer

Japan bank shares slide on subprime worries
Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:19am EST
By David Dolan -- Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUST1547920080116

TOKYO (Reuters) - Shares of Japan's largest banks fell sharply on Wednesday on concern about the widening impact of the U.S. subprime crisis, with Mizuho Financial Group (8411.T: Quote, Profile, Research) hitting its lowest in more than three years after it said it would help fund struggling rival Merrill Lynch (MER.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

Large Japanese lenders such as Mizuho and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (8306.T: Quote, Profile, Research) have so far dodged the heavy losses that hit Merrill and Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research), but they haven't escaped unscathed.

Mitsubishi UFJ, Japan's largest bank, likely lost as much as $470 million on subprime investments last year, a more than tenfold increase from its previous estimate, industry sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.

"Investors are worried this is turning into a black hole," said Koichi Ogawa, chief portfolio manager at Daiwa SB Investments.