Asia stocks track Wall Street as oil rout hits confidence

A businessman looks at a share prices board in Tokyo on Dec 10, 2015. (Photo: AFP/Yoshikazu Tsuno)

HONG KONG: A sense of unease spread across Asian stock exchanges on Thursday (Dec 10) with investors spooked by the sharp sell-off in oil sending regional markets lower.

With crude sitting around seven-year lows, energy firms came under further pressure, following more losses on Wall Street.

"Today is all about risk-off moves. Oil is still excessively low at this price - concerns this will be the status quo is making investors avoid risk for now," Mitsushige Akino, executive officer at Ichiyoshi Asset Management Co. in Tokyo, told Bloomberg News.

While oil prices edged up in early Asian trade, the gains were marginal compared with the losses of around nine per cent suffered since the OPEC cartel on Friday decided against cutting output despite a global glut and weak demand.

Depressed crude prices continue to hurt some energy stocks, with Sydney-listed Woodside Petroleum down 0.7 per cent, Origin 0.8 per cent lower and Oil Search off more than one per cent.

In Hong Kong, CNOOC eased three per cent and PetroChina gave up early advances to end more than one per cent lower.

Japan's Nikkei index slipped 1.32 per cent by the close, Sydney ended 0.8 per cent lower and Hong Kong edged down 0.45 per cent, marking a sixth straight loss.

The falls followed a sell-off on Wall Street that saw all three indexes end in the red.

Shanghai finished 0.5 per cent down after swinging through the day as a string of recent weak economic data provided some hope that Beijing will unveil a fresh round of growth-boosting measures.

The dollar was struggling to make up ground against most of its rivals, with an expected Federal Reserve hike in borrowing costs next week largely priced in.

The euro edged down but held most of its gains against the greenback after breaking US$1.1 in US trade, with last week's underwhelming stimulus from the European Central Bank providing support.

The Australian dollar rallied nearly one per cent after another surprisingly good jobs report eased talk of another rate cut by Canberra.

And the New Zealand dollar added 0.5 per cent on talk that Thursday's rate cut to a record low by Wellington would be the last for some time. South Korea's won was slightly lower as an early advance petered out.

Yasuhiro Kaizaki, vice president for global markets at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank in New York, warned traders faced a potentially painful week.

"Markets will be faced with heightened volatility going into the Fed's gathering amid risk aversion and a lack of fresh news," he told Bloomberg News. "Currencies will be looking for stability in stocks or commodities."

In opening European trade London fell 0.5 per cent, Frankfurt declined 0.4 per cent and Paris also shed 0.4 per cent.

- Key figures around 0830 GMT -

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.32 per cent at 19,046.55 (close)

Shanghai - composite: DOWN 0.49 per cent at 3,455.50 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng: DOWN 0.45 per cent at 21.704.61 (close)

London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.5 per cent at 6,096.8

Euro/dollar: DOWN to US$1.0980 from US$1.1026 late on Wednesday

Dollar/yen: UP to ¥121.69 from ¥121.40

New York - Dow: DOWN 0.4 per cent at 17,492.30 (close)