Asian markets trade mostly lower in early deals on Friday

Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Friday tracking the negative cues overnight from Wall Street, as rising worries about the financial health of German lender Deutsche Bank dented investor sentiment. Besides, oil prices inched back from near-one month highs on scepticism over OPEC's new plan to curb output fuelled the downtrend. Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei slipped after fears about the stability on Deutsche Bank shook Wall Street and took a toll on financial shares, with the Japanese stock index on track for weekly and monthly losses. Among the other Asian markets, South Korea, Indonesia Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan are in negative territory. Meanwhile, Shanghai is edging higher.

Nikkei 225 slipped 222.17 points or 1.33% to 16,471.54, Hang Seng dipped 301.40 points or 1.27% to 23,438.07, Straits Times declined 26.40 points or 0.91% to 2,859.31, KOSPI Index crumbled 17.54 points or 0.85% to 2,051.18, Taiwan Weighted dropped 78.94 points or 0.85% to 9,191.96, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 4.45 points or 0.27% to 1,665.19, and Jakarta Composite was down by 5.52 points or 0.10% to 5,426.44.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was up by 4.33 points or 0.14% to 3,002.81.