Beijing - China's main stock market fell by nearly 6 per cent in early trading on Thursday, following more big losses on Wall Street.

The key Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks shares traded in local and foreign currencies, closed the morning session at 1,816.44, down 5.84 per cent, state media said.

Shares in banking and insurance companies led the plunge, after reports that several major Chinese banks held bonds in the bankrupt US investment firm Lehman Brothers.

Manila - Philippine stocks continued to freefall on Thursday, after a slight recovery a day earlier, with the main index plunging 4.25 per cent.

The Philippine Stock Exchange's 30-share composite index lost 104.63 points to close at 2,352.37 from Wednesday's finish of 2,457.00.

A total of 1.81 billion shares worth 2.15 billion pesos (45.74 million dollars) were traded.

Losers swamped gainers 117 to 14, with 23 issues unchanged.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong shares fell by more than 5 per cent in the first hour of trading Thursday in one of the city's worst financial weeks on record.

The Hang Seng Index, which had already lost 5.4 per cent of its value Tuesday and another 3.63 per cent Wednesday, was down by 895 points or 5.04 per cent at 11 am Thursday.

The index, shaken by the news coming out of the US since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, has now lost nearly 3,000 points since the beginning of the week. Monday was a public holiday in Hong Kong.

Wellington - The New Zealand stock market, which rallied Wednesday after recording its biggest fall in six years a day earlier, opened sharply lower Thursday following big losses overnight on Wall Street.

The benchmark NZX 50 index fell 86.9 points, or 2.7 per cent, in early trading to 3,183, after rising 1.3 per cent the previous day on the back of renewed confidence after the US Federal Reserve's bail- out loan to insurance giant American International Group (AIG).

Sydney - Australian shares ga