Outlook gloom hits Asia tech stocks; dlr firm

By Staff
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SINGAPORE, Jan 19 (Reuters) Downbeat earnings outlooks from global bellwether companies drove Asian technology stocks down on Friday and energy shares fell after swelling U.S. fuel inventories took crude oil below a barrel.

Financial bookmakers expected Britain's FTSE 100 index <.ftse> to open a shade lower, while the dollar held near Thursday's 2003 high against the yen on strong U.S. economic data and after the Bank of Japan decided against raising interest rates.

Japanese government bonds climbed as the BOJ decision pushed the threat of a rate rise forward to February. Gold was little changed.

Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei average <.n225> finished down 0.35 percent as falls among technology shares such as Advantest outweighed gains by property stocks and other interest-rate sensitive shares such as consumer loans firm Aiful .

''The tech earnings are not good. Investors prefer to take profits instead of sitting around worrying,'' said Cho Seong-joon, an analyst at Meritz Securities in Seoul, where Hynix Semiconductor fell nearly 5 percent to a five-month low.

Taiwan's TSMC , the world's top contract chipmaker, fell 2 percent.

MSCI's index of non-Japan Asian shares <.msciapj> also fell 0.35 percent by 0615 GMT. Its tech component <.msciapjit> gave up more than 1.4 percent.

Analysts mostly blamed weak sentiment in the United States after disappointing results and outlooks from the likes of Apple , Lam Research Corp. and IBM .

Crude oil , which fell as low as .90 a barrel on Thursday for the first time in 20 months, sat back above .

Click here [O/R] for a crude market report.

But the skids were still under oil producer stocks like Woodside , which fell 2 percent, as data showing bigger than expected U.S. inventories extended crude's loss to about 18 percent in 2007 so far.

But Chinese coal shares surged for a second day on news of a price deal with mainland power utilities. China Coal jumped 4.8 percent.

SE ASIA PEAKS In Southeast Asia, the bulls were running. Singapore shares <.sti> reached a record high and Philippines shares <.psi> had their highest close in a decade.

The yen was mired at its lowest for nearly four years against a strong U.S. currency. The BOJ's vote on Thursday to hold rates at 0.25 percent marked an abrupt shift in expectations, and U.S. economic data was seen suggesting the Federal Reserve would not rush to trim interest rates from 5.25 percent for a while yet.

Click here for a full story on the U.S. data [nN18446448].

The yen also hit a new nine-year low against the Australian dollar and was stuck close to an eight-year trough against the British pound.

''Bigger picture, the yen is going to weaken against everything,'' said one senior trader at a European investment bank in Tokyo.

The dollar was little changed from late New York trade near 121.32 yen , just below Thursday's peak of 121.60 yen on electronic trading platform EBS -- its strongest since March 2003.

The euro climbed to 157.50 yen from 157.15 yen, pushing back towards the all-time high of 158.06 yen struck earlier in the month.

A Reuters poll on Thursday after the BOJ meeting found 32 of 45 traders and analysts in the Tokyo bond and foreign exchange markets expect a BOJ move in February after three out of nine board members dissented in favour of a hike this week.

Click here for the poll story [nTBK002627].

Benchmark March Japanese bond futures rose 0.48 points to 134.58. Benchmark March euroyen futures climbed as much as 3.5 basis points to 99.385, their highest in 3-{ months.

Gold was little changed at about 8.85 an ounce, near a two week high but pressured by lower oil prices.

U.S. stocks closed lower. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell only about 0.1 percent, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 1.5 percent.

REUTERS SBA VV1606

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