Japan’s Morimoto Company has become the country’s second largest bankruptcy of 2008 following a four day winning stock streak that ended with the Asian stocks falling and the Australian profit growth slowing. In addition to the stocks sliding, BHP Billion Ltd. which is the world’s largest mining company saw a 4% slump as commodity prices declined and Australia’s corporate profit growth slowed during the third quarter. And Mitsubishi Estate Co., Japan’s second largest real estate developer also saw a decline of 3.9% after Morimoto filed bankruptcy protection.

“The deterioration of the economy has become increasingly clear,” Tomochika Kitaoka, a Tokyo-based strategist at Mizuho Securities Co., said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Unlike many other nations around the world, however, Japan is not looking at fiscal stimulus packages to help boost the economy according to Minister Kaoru Yosano.

But the whole world is currently feeling the effects of the global crisis and even after ‘Black Friday’ in the United States the economy is not getting any better. Retail sales in the United States only rose 3%, the smallest growth in three years, heralding the slowest holiday shopping season in the last six. ‘Black Friday’ is the day after Thanksgiving and is usually the biggest and more profitable day of the year for American retailers.

Stocks and retailers weren’t the only ones feeling the crunch. January’s oil delivery number dropped 1.6% to $53.55 and OPEC has decided to hold off on making a decision about reduced production for another two weeks. Copper saw its biggest drop, falling 2.5% in New York, and the stockpiles of the metal that is monitored by the London Metal Exchange saw its highest levels since February 2004, proving that there is a reduced demand for the metal due to the global recession. Copper is used in pipes and wiring.

Morimoto’s filing on November 28 was to protect them from their 162 billion yen (or $1.7 billion) debt. This filing is taking place nine months after the company’s initial public offering. Urban Corp. was the largest bankruptcy filing in the country and the companies helped push Japan’s list of failed companies to its highest since World War II. Additionally, the shrinking demand of products in the United States and the increasing costs of disposing nonperforming assets have caused Japan’s biggest listed companies to see a collective drop of 32% in earnings over the first half of 2008.