Asian Stocks Drop as Rio Takeover Derailed; Toyota Declines

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks fell as credit market turmoil derailed BHP Billiton Ltd.'s $66 billion takeover of Rio Tinto Group and Toyota Motor Corp. lost its AAA debt rating.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 0.4 percent to 79.69 as of 11:06 a.m. in Tokyo. That snapped yesterday's 4.1 percent rally, the biggest in three weeks, fueled by a surge in commodity prices and the U.S. government's rescue of Citigroup Inc.

``Investor sentiment is drifting between optimism about U.S. policies and pessimism about the market outlook,'' Hiroichi Nishi, a Tokyo-based equities manager at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc., said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.