Japan's stock index falls to 2-week low on US woes

The country's Nikkei 225 stock average plummeted 456.87, or 5.25 percent, to 8,238.64, its worst closing level since Oct. 29. The broader Topix index shed 4.31 percent to 837.53.

Overnight in New York, the Dow Jones industrials lost 4.73 percent as investors reacted to more bleak corporate earnings reports and news that the U.S. government has decided not to purchase bad mortgage assets from banks.

With the latest earnings period coming to a close, markets are now turning their focus to the upcoming Christmas shopping season to gauge the extent of the U.S. slowdown, said Nagayuki Yamagishi, a strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities in Tokyo.

"It's of course going to be bad," he said. "The question is how bad."

Exacerbating the gloom Thursday was a stronger yen, which hurts major exporters by making their products more expensive abroad and reducing the value of overseas profits.

The greenback was trading at 95.54 yen Thursday afternoon, after hovering just under 98 yen the previous day in Asia.

Sony Corp. plunged 8.7 percent to 2,000 yen, Nintendo Co. was off 6.9 percent at 28,550 yen, and Panasonic Corp. retreated 7.4 percent to 1,382 yen.

Another electronics maker, Sharp Corp., closed down 8.4 percent at 667 yen on news it agreed to pay $120 million after pleading guilty to conspiring with two other companies to fix prices of LCD screens in the U.S.

Semiconductor issues fell hard after Intel Corp. on Thursday cut more than $1 billion from its fourth-quarter revenue forecast and downgraded its profit expectations, blaming "significantly weaker than expected demand in all geographies and market segments."