TOKYO: Asia stocks lost ground on Tuesday as low oil prices dented sentiment and investors awaited premier Shinzo Abe’s announcement on details of the government’s massive stimulus programme.
Crude prices rebounded modestly in Asian trade, but were still hovering around three-month lows of around $40 a barrel a day after slipping into a bear market, taking the wind out of energy and commodity-linked shares.
Abe is expected later Tuesday to offer some specifics on the whopping 28 trillion yen ($273 billion) fiscal package announced last week to kickstart the world’s number-three economy.
At the lunch break, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.7 percent, while Sydney edged 0.4 percent lower and Seoul fell 0.5 percent.
Shanghai ticked up 0.2 percent after opening in the red, but Taipei, Manila and Singapore were lower.
Hong Kong’s stock exchange was shuttered as Typhoon Nida slammed the city with violent winds and torrential rain.
Oil’s decline “will probably weigh on sentiment a little bit and we may see some risk-off moves associated with that”, James Woods, a strategist at Rivkin Securities in Sydney, told Bloomberg News.
