Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading down in the early deals on Friday, following sharp losses on Wall Street as a slump in commodities markets deterred investors from riskier assets and expectations grew that the US would soon move to raise interest rates. Meanwhile, the Japanese market is notably lower tracking the overnight sell-off on Wall Street and the decline in crude oil prices. Investors also treaded cautiously ahead of the earnings results from the country's three main banks. Among the other Asian markets, Hong Kong, Shanghai, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan are also in negative territory. Bucking the trend, Indonesia is edging higher.
Nikkei 225 declined 130.36 points or 0.66% to 19,567.41, Hang Seng dropped 473.05 points or 2.07% to 22,415.87, Shanghai Composite slipped 42.08 points or 1.16% to 3,590.82, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI contracted 1.77 points or 0.11% to 1,661.43, KOSPI Index decreased 20.16 points or 1.01% to 1,973.20, Taiwan Weighted dipped 66.12 points or 0.78% to 8,361.97, and Straits Times was down by 27.90 points or 0.94% to 2,931.11.
On the flip side, Jakarta Composite was up by 12.89 points or 0.29% to 4,475.12.