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The yen rose for a second day against the euro, while oil and copper slid, on concern that Europe’s debt crisis will slow global economic growth. Japanese stocks dropped after Elpida Memory Inc. filed the nation’s biggest bankruptcy in two years.

The yen climbed 0.4 percent to 107.56 per euro as of 11:17 a.m. in Tokyo, rising against all 16 major counterparts. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average (NKY) slumped 0.8 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index and futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index were little changed before a report that may show U.S. consumer confidence rebounded. Oil retreated 0.5 percent to $107.99 a barrel and copper declined from a two-week high.

Standard & Poor’s lowered Greece’s credit ratings to “Selective Default” yesterday, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a parliamentary vote on Greek aid that showed rising dissent in her coalition. Elpida, which has been unprofitable in each of the past five quarters, filed for bankruptcy after semiconductor prices plunged.

“Most participants do expect that Greece will default at some point,” said Andrew Salter, a strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Sydney.

Parliaments in Finland and the Netherlands plan to vote on the Greek rescue package today and the European Central Bank is preparing to issue a second round of unlimited three-year loans to help shore up the region’s banks.

Earnings Season
About the same number of stocks rose and fell in the MSCI Asia gauge. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index added 0.4 percent and South Korea’s Kospi Index gained 0.3 percent. Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd., PCCW Ltd. and Sino Land Co. are among Asian companies set to report earnings today.

Elpida shares were bid at their lower limit in Tokyo. Sell offers outnumbered bids about 1,500-to-1, meaning it couldn’t trade under exchange rules. The company’s 0.5 percent convertible notes due in October 2015 plunged 40 yen to 18 per 100 face value, according to Citigroup Inc. prices.

Shares of chipmakers in South Korea advanced. Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s biggest computer-memory maker, added 1.4 percent. Hynix Semiconductor Inc. jumped 6.3 percent. Japanese suppliers of semiconductor materials and equipment dropped, with Advantest Corp. and Sumco Corp. losing at least 3.6 percent.

Goodman Fielder Ltd. (GFF), Australia’s biggest baker, surged 31 percent. Wilmar International Ltd., the world’s largest palm-oil processor, is seeking to buy a 10 percent stake in the company, according to a statement from Goodman Fielder.

Yen Climbs
The yen gained 0.4 percent to 80.29 per dollar. The Japanese currency has weakened 6.1 percent in the past month, the biggest decline among 10 developed-nation currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes.

Malaysia’s ringgit rose 0.4 percent to 3.0140 per dollar and the South Korean won appreciated 0.2 percent to 1,126.80 per dollar. The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index halted a two- day drop. Pending U.S. home resales climbed 2 percent last month after a 1.9 percent drop the prior month, the National Association of Realtors said in Washington yesterday.

“The market received a psychological boost from the good U.S. data,” said Hwang Sun Min, a currency dealer at Kookmin Bank, South Korea’s biggest lender by assets.

Treasuries snapped a four-day gain before the consumer confidence report. Ten-year yields rose one basis point to 1.93 percent.

Brent crude, the benchmark for more than half the world’s oil, is also approaching an all-time high in Indian rupees and Brazilian reals. The gains may lead to “demand destruction,” Hussein Allidina, head of commodities research at Morgan Stanley in New York, said in a telephone interview yesterday.