Asian shares plunge on global fears; Nikkei slides 1.13%

Investing.com - Every major Asian bourse is currently languishing in the red during Tuesday’s Asian session as traders are grappling with a bout of concerning headlines from around the world.

In Asian trading Tuesday, Japan’s Nikkei 225 tumbled 1.13% as traders ran into safe-haven currencies such as the yen and U.S. dollar following some discouraging headlines out of Italy and Spain released Monday.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng plunged 1.7% while the Shanghai Composite slid 0.4% after Sinopec, China’s second-largest oil company, announced a USD3.1 billion secondary share offering. While Sinopec said it will use the proceeds to bolster production assets, secondary offerings usually pressure stocks because the offerings dilute current shareholders. Sinopec, like PetroChina, is state-controlled.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index lost 0.4% after the Reserve Bank of Australia opted against another interest rate cut at its meeting today. That sent the AUD/USD plunging and the pairto be hampered by another round of concerning economic data from the world’s twelfth-largest economy. On Monday, official data showed that building approvals in Australia dropped 4.4% in December, disappointing expectations for a 1% rise, after a 3.4% increase the previous month.

A separate report showed that job advertisements in Australia fell 0.90% in January, following a 2.80% decline the previous month.

Earlier today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said that Australia’s January trade balance rose to a seasonally adjusted AUD -0.43billion from AUD-2.79billion in December. Analysts expected a January reading of AUD-0.80B.

Faltering equities in Australia dragged New Zealand’s NZSE 50 lower by 0.77%. A dark cloud was cast over the Asian session thanks to the euro zone. Amid corruption allegations, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is facing calls for his resignation.

In Italy, bond yields soared after former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pledged to cut taxes and repay a reviled real estate tax if his countrymen give him his old job back. Left-of-center rival Pier Luigi Bersani countered those points by promising to spend EUR7.5 billion on public works projects if elected. Italy and Spain are the euro zone’s third- and fourth-largest economies, respectively.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.68% while Singapore’s Straits Times Index lost 0.7%. Stocks in Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan were also lower. S&P 500 futures climbed 0.13% after the benchmark U.S. index endured its worst day of 2013 on Monday.