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Thai vote postponed

There was a similar challenge in Thailand, where creditors of the country's biggest debt defaulter, Thai Petrochemical Industry, were forced to postpone a vote on a $ 3.80 billion debt restructuring deal on Thursday due to a worker strike. The shareholders of TPI are believed to be counting on a new government to support them against the creditors. "If this indeed happens, the clock will need to turn back two years in Bangkok," Mobashar Ahmed said.

Asia unnerved

Asian assets were mostly weaker on Friday, unnerved by a fresh fall in the Nasdaq and renewed concerns over debt problems across the region.

Tokyo's Nikkei ended 0.29 % lower at 14544.30 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.77 % at 15180.62 on losses of chip heavyweights like Hutchison Whampoa.

South Korea's benchmark KOSPI also fell, as investors were edgy due to a delay in Hyundai Engineering and Construction's debt rehabilitation plan.

Mobashar Ahmed, Chief Analyst for futuresdata.net, said bears were expected to dominate the region as uplifting global factors emerge. "I think the markets will really turn on a couple of key global factors," Mr Ahmed said, "like interest rates expectations in the US becoming more benign and oil prices falling enough to reduce risk aversion.

"Hopefully at some point in time, views on IT spending and its impact on Asia would become a bit less panicky."

The indices had little or limited impact on regional markets as they included slight adjustments in Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. Regional currencies mostly weakened, sinking under the weight of strong dollar demand for debt repayments, high oil prices and concerns over the debt ridden corporate sector in Asia.