HONG KONG: Asian markets mostly turned lower Thursday following a rare drop for this month on Wall Street, with concerns about Italy's banking sector denting confidence.
With dealers winding down for the Christmas break business is thinning, making swings sharper while profit-takers close in after the recent global rally.
Trading floors from Asia to the Americas have been humming since Donald Trump last month won the US presidential election, with dealers betting his big-spending, tax-cutting policies will ramp up growth in the world's top economy.
That has also fuelled a surge on US markets, with all three main indexes clocking up record closes in December.
However, the Dow slipped for just the fourth time this month, having hit multiple all-time highs and bearing down on the key 20,000-point mark.
And in early trade Asian markets followed their US counterparts' lead.
Tokyo ended down 0.1 percent, having risen for 10 of the previous 12 sessions.
"Moderate losses on Wall Street, underpinned by the fall in oil prices, are providing little inspiration for Asian markets today," Jingyi Pan, a strategist at IG Asia in Singapore, told Bloomberg News.
"Thin volumes are also providing little momentum for trade into the end of the year."
Hong Kong lost 0.8 percent in the afternoon, putting it into a correction -- a 10 percent drop from its recent high seen on September 9.
Singapore fell 0.7 percent and Seoul was 0.1 percent lower, while Taipei, Manila, Mumbai, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur also retreated.
But Sydney closed 0.5 percent higher and Wellington climbed 0.7 percent after data showed the New Zealand economy grew more than expected July-September.
Shanghai reversed early losses to end up 0.1 percent.
Financial firms fell on worries over Italy, where the world's oldest bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena plunged more than 12 percent as it struggles to stay afloat under massive debts.
The lender's troubles mirror a wider problem in Italy's banking industry, which is buckling under bad loans, prompting parliament to approve a 20 billion euro ($20.9 billion) support package.
There are fears a collapse in the country's finance sector could batter the global banking industry.
Expectations Trump's spending will fuel inflation and force the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates have also boosted the dollar against all its peers and on Thursday it held its recent gains, sitting at 10-month highs against the yen and near 14-year highs versus the euro.
On oil markets both main contracts edged down, extending a more than one percent drop Wednesday on the back of a report showing a rise in US stockpiles, confounding expectations for a fall.
- Key figures around 0700 GMT -
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Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.1 percent at 19,427.67 (close)
Hong Kong - Hang Seng: DOWN 0.8 percent at 21,643.77
Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 3,139.56 (close)
Euro/dollar: UP at $1.0436 from $1.0425 Wednesday
Dollar/yen: UP at 117.71 yen from 117.53 yen
Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2352 from $1.2358
Oil - West Texas Intermediate: DOWN six cents at $52.43 per barrel
Oil - Brent North Sea: DOWN five cents at $54.41
New York - Dow: DOWN 0.2 percent at 19,941.96 (close)
London - FTSE 100: DOWN less than 0.1 percent at 7,041.42 (close)
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