Share sell-off moderates in Asia after rout on Wall Street

Shares fell moderately in Asia on Thursday after another torrent of selling on Wall Street sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting more than 600 points, erasing its gains for the year.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index sank sharply on the open but levelled off, regaining some lost ground. By mid-morning it was down 2.9 per cent at 21,443.72.

The Shanghai Composite index slipped 1.6 per cent to 2,561.36 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index skidded 1.8 per cent to 24,785.68.

Charts for the entire region were awash with the red that indicates losses, but the declines were mostly in the 2 per cent to 3 per cent range.

"Coming online with the overtly risk-off backdrop from US markets, investors in the Asian region would be taking the cue to head for the doors," Jingyi Pan of IG said in a commentary.

In Hong Kong, airline Cathay Pacific's shares dropped 6.5 per cent after it said it had discovered a data breach affecting 9.4 million passengers.

In New York trading overnight, the Nasdaq composite with its hefty roster of tech stocks bore the brunt of the sell-off, falling more than 10 per cent below its August peak, what Wall Street calls a "correction."
The sentiment and the outlook seems to be turning more negative, or at the very least, less rosy."