ASIA MARKET OPEN | Asian Stocks Open Lower as Brent Tops $100; Nikkei Sheds 1.3%, Hang Seng Breaks 25,000, Taiwan Drops Over 450 Points

According to HKET, Yonhap and The Korea Herald, Asian equities opened broadly lower on Thursday after Brent crude pushed above US$100 a barrel on a fresh Middle East flare-up, reviving inflation worries and pressuring Wall Street overnight, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.77% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.64%. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 opened weaker, quoted at 64,311.29, down 831.49 points or 1.28%, as higher oil prices and rising Japanese government bond yields weighed on sentiment. Seoul's Kospi opened 0.18% lower and extended losses to 7,031.53, off 20.11 points or 0.29%, as of 9:15 a.m. local time, tracking the Wall Street pullback. Among large caps, Samsung Electronics eased 0.74% while chipmaking peer SK hynix edged up 0.05%; carmaker Hyundai Motor gained 0.52%. The won firmed to 1,338.90 per dollar. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index opened 289 points lower at 24,985, slipping below the 25,000 mark, while the Hang Seng Tech Index fell 1.4% to 4,359. Alibaba dropped more than 2% and Sunny Optical lost over 2% after Apple's product event, while CNOOC bucked the trend with a gain of more than 1%. Taiwan's TAIEX opened down 52.4 points at 47,130.96 and at one point sank more than 450 points, with market heavyweight TSMC slipping below its five-day line; financial shares stepped in to cushion the decline. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite opened down 0.31%, the Shenzhen Component fell 0.60% and the ChiNext Index lost 0.91%, with more than 3,900 stocks declining; oil-and-gas, shipping and insurance shares were active.