Asian stocks fell in Tuesday afternoon trade as U.S. crude prices plunged to negative levels overnight.
Asian Stocks
- The Shanghai composite down 1.35% while the Shenzhen composite shed 1.556%.
- Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 2.29%.
- In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell 2.18% as shares of index heavyweights Fast Retailing and Softbank Group dropped at least 4% each.
- The Topix index also shed 1.35%.
- Meanwhile, stocks in Australia slipped, with the S&P/ASX 200 1.83% lower.
- South Korea’s Kospi dropped 2.08% in afternoon trade while the Kosdaq index dropped 2.95%.
- The South Korean won also weakened significantly against the greenback as it traded 1.02% lower at 1,233.07 per dollar.
Currency
- The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against as basket of its peers, was last at 100.145 after an earlier low of 99.928.
- The Japanese yen traded at 107.53 per dollar after seeing levels below 107.4 last week.
- The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.6305, off levels above $0.635 seen yesterday.
Oil Prices
- The price of the May WTI contract returned to positive territory, trading at $1.38 per barrel.
- The June U.S. crude contract gained 4.6% to $21.37 per barrel.
- International benchmark Brent crude futures, on the other hand, dipped 0.7% to $25.39 per barrel.
