By James Langton

(September 18 – 09:00 ET) – Overnight in Asia stocks were walloped on the heels of Friday’s selloff on Wall Street. The Nikkei is down 152 points to 16,061. The Hang Seng shed 689 points, 4.4%, to 15,560. A fall in HSBC, precipitated by the weak euro, is slugging that market, as is the selloff in tech stocks.

There are no economic data releases in the U.S. today, although Fed chairman Alan Greenspan is speaking this morning at the American Banker’s Association on banking supervision. No one is expecting any rate hints, but traders will be watching just in case.

In Canada, the leading economic indicator slowed to 0.4% in August from its upward-revised gains of 0.5% in June and July. Economists were expecting it to sustain its 0.5% pace, but the miss isn’t huge and shouldn’t move markets.

Business spending remained the major source of growth in the overall index, driven by demand for high technology goods, and this also led further gains in the stock market. These two components alone contributed half of the overall growth. Household demand moderated, especially for housing and durable goods.

The big story overseas remains the weakening euro and continued strength in crude oil. European markets are taking a hit on the profit concerns caused by these two factors and following on from weakness in the Dow last week and Asia earlier today.

Phillips and Alcatel are leading techs down and banks are slumping too, led by HSBC and Dresdner. Dresdner has apparently agreed to buy Wall Street investment bank Wasserstein, Perella & Co. for US$1.37 billion in stock, as was rumoured last week.

The FTSE is off just two points to 6,415. The CAC 40 is down 70 points to 6,544. The DAX is down 41 points to 6,958.

In M&A news, Cadbury Schweppes plc is buying the Snapple Beverage Group from Triarc Cos. for US$1.45 billion. Smiths Industries plc, an engineering company based in the U.K., said it will buy aerospace parts maker TI Group plc for US$2.8 billion in stock and cash.

Finally, in a homegrown deal Corus Entertainment Inc. is buying children’s animation firm Nelvana Ltd for $540 million in stock and cash, paying $48 a share for Nelvana, 60% in cash.

In other business news, Cricket Communications, a subsidiary of Leap Wireless International, Inc. has signed a three-year supply agreement with Nortel Networks, estimated to be worth up to US$350 million.