Dealers said that trading volume was low ahead of the Chinese New Year holidays next week, but that was little comfort to some. ``I see short-term support at 9,000 and a couple of hundred points below that,'' said technical analyst Ted Chen, from Indosuez WI Carr Securities. ``This low turnover is usually not a good sign,'' headded. Tokyo's Nikkei Index dropped 0.55 per cent to 13,825.81 in morning trade, with the Dow slide taking the blame.

``After what happened overseas, I think people wouldn't be optimistic about buying stocks,'' said Paul Migliorato from Jardine Fleming Securities in Japan. A sell off that dragged the share price of brokerage giant Nomura Securities down 5.1 percent at 0500 GMT also weighed on the Nikkei.

Australia and New Zealand shares did not escape the equities fallout from New York. The NZSE-40 Index ended down 2.88 per cent while the Australian All Ords was down 1.24 per cent at the close. ``There's no reason for (Australia) to be strong I suppose, and every reason for it to be weak. Wall Street's falling and commodity prices are falling,'' said client adviser Joseph Pagliaro from Wilson HTM. Program selling was blamed by South Korean brokers for accentuating weakness in Seoul's KOSPI Index, which fell 0.51 per cent by early afternoon. A negative reaction to the pricing of a US$765 million DBS Banknotes issue added domestic pressure to the regional fall in equity prices in Singapore, taking the Straits Times Index down 1.08 per cent at lunch, below the psychological barrier of 1,300. It was a similar story in Kuala Lumpur which slipped 1.11 per cent, Manila which fell 1.96 percent and Jakarta which shed 0.91 percent. All were infected by Wall Street's weakness, along with ongoing domestic concerns.

Taiwan shrugged off the Dow's fall to stage a 1.3 per cent rally before entering a nine day market holiday for the Chinese New Year. Bangkok initially fell more than one per cent but by 0500 GMT was up 0.36 per cent. u