Sydney - The steep fall on Wall Street proved a strong gravitational pull on Australian stocks Thursday with the market losing most of recent gains.

The ASX 200 gave up 85 points, or 2.3 per cent, to 3,694.

"We had a good run on commodities over the last few days and we are reversing some of those gains," IG Markets dealer Oliver Stevens said.

Taipei - Taiwan stocks plunged almost five per cent in mid-session Thursday due to the worsening global recession and a decline in the island nation's December exports.

By 12:19 pm, the TAIEX index had fallen 234.42 points, or 4.89 per cent, to 4,555.42.

Analysts blamed the fall on the continued global recession, a drop in oil prices, the overnight fall of US stocks and a record 41.9 per cent slump in Taiwan's December exports.

The Sensex lost more than 700 points on Wednesday (Jan 07) following some startling revelations made by B. Ramalinga Raju, the Chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd.

It came as disgusting news to market that Raju quitted after confession of fraud in company’s books.

All sectorial indices hammered badly and marked their closures on a negative note. Realty, oil & gas and IT were among the major losers, which fell 16.95%, 9.35% and 9.32% respectively.

Tokyo  - Japan's benchmark Nikkei index snapped a seven-day winning streak on renewed worries over the US economy Thursday.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 212.5 points, or 2.3 per cent, to 9,026.74, as investor concerns grew over US jobmarket data.

The broader Topix index of all First Section issues was also down 15.45 points, or 1.74 per cent, to 872.8.

The yen's advance against the US dollar also led investors to sell mainly export-oriented issues as a stronger yen affects Japanese companies' earnings.

New York  - US stocks fell Wednesday amid concerns over massive job losses and profit warnings from Intel and Time Warner.

Computer chip giant Intel warned of a fourth-quarter sales plunge of more than 23 per cent and said it expected to record an investment loss of about 1 billion dollars.

The world's largest chipmaker originally forecast between 10.1 billion dollars and 10.9 billion dollars in revenue, but now expects revenues in the crucial holiday period to be just 8.2 billion dollars, down from 10.7 billion dollars a year earlier.

Indian equities continued to trade negatively on the back of heavy selling pressure seen across board.
 
The 30-share index BSE Sensex has suffered big loss due to Satyam’s announcement.

All sectors were trading in deep red. Realty and IT were among the major losers, which lost 16.72% and 9.74% respectively.

Second rung stocks also saw huge selling pressure. BSE Midcap and Smallcap index fell 7.68% and 6.66% respectively.

Today, the 30-share index, BSE Sensex opened with a gain of 89.03 points, at 10,424.96.