April 21, 2009

Japanese stocks tumbled Tuesday, with investors rattled by a blowout in problem loans at a major U.S. bank and an unsettling production outlook for Toyota Motor Corp.The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average declined 213.42 points, or 2.4 percent, to 8,711.33 - its lowest closing level in two weeks. The broader Topix fell 2.1 percent to 830.72.Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrials shed 3.6 percent on news of mounting bad loans at Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ). Investors reverted to worrying about the banking industry again after the bank, while posting a profit in the first quarter, said it was setting aside $13.4 billion to cover losses from souring loans.

Japan's biggest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., fell 1 percent to 491 yen, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. was down 1.7 percent to 2,980 yen, and Mizuho Financial Group ( MFG - news - people ) Inc. slipped 1 percent to 195 yen.Nomura Holdings Inc., Japan's biggest securities firm, slumped 3.7 percent to 578 yen.Shin Tamura, a banking analyst at Deutsche Securities Inc. in Tokyo, warned that bank shares face a rocky road in the near term, particularly with earnings reports from U.S. banks still coming in and the results of the Federal Reserve's stress tests out soon.