Stocks in Japan have fallen on the back of a strong performing yen and worries about the state of the US economy.
Following concerns about levels of confidence among US house builders, stocks on several Japanese stock exchanges fell for the third day in a row.
According to Market Watch, in early trading the Nikkei Stock Average fell by 1.7 per cent to hit 9,252. Some of the biggest stock value losers were electronics firms, with Sony seeing a drop of 2.4 per cent and fellow electronics giant Hitachi seeing falls of two per cent.
Other Japanese companies with falling stock values included Honda.
The drops were linked to US earnings reports during the night which showed that both Texas Instruments and International Business Machines Corp failed to meet earning levels predicted by market analysts.
Texas Instruments is the second biggest chipmaker in the US and International Business Machines Corp is a computer service provider.
Written by Kimberley Homer.