Asian Stocks Decline on Signs Global Recession Is Deepening

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks fell, snapping a four- day winning streak as Australian profit growth slowed and Japan’s Morimoto Co. became the country’s second-largest bankruptcy this year.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index declined 1.4 percent to 81.51 as of 10:32 a.m. in Tokyo, ending a four-day, 7.6 percent advance. The gauge has slumped 48 percent this year, set for the worst annual performance on record, as the U.S. housing slump sparked a global financial crisis that dragged the world’s biggest economies into recession.

“The deterioration of the economy has become increasingly clear,” Tomochika Kitaoka, a Tokyo-based strategist at Mizuho Securities Co., said in an interview with Bloomberg Television