Asian Stocks Lower on Wide Selloff

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Asian markets had an initial attempt to stay in the green just after the opening bell, but the market saw a wide selloff driving most Asian stocks below the break-even line.

The worst performer of the day was the Japanese Nikkei index, which so far has lost 2.5%.

The index is being led lower by financials such as Mitsubishi UFJ (MTU Quote), Mizuho Financial (MFG Quote) and Nomura(NMR Quote), which lost as much as 16% during the session, the worst performance in Friday trade. Airlines were also trading lower with Japan Airlines trading 6.3% lower and All Nippon Airways down 3.0%.

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A report released from the Bank of Japan has shown that corporate service prices have declined at a rapid pace during August. Services such as transportation and rent have decreased by nearly 3.5% in the past year. Deflation is now becoming a threat to the recovery of the Japanese economy.

The Bank of Japan also released the monetary policy meeting minutes. The report mentioned that board members were concerned that smaller companies will struggle to borrow from lending institutions even as the economy begins to improve.

U.S. equity futures were pointing to a higher start to trade on Friday, after being down earlier.

Crude oil for October delivery was recently trading at $66.05 a barrel, higher by 16 cents.

Gold for October delivery was recently trading lower by $3.30 to $995.60.

In currencies, the major pairs experienced continued volatility during the beginning of the Asian session after seeing major moves in the previous sessions. Dollar bulls were hard at work, pushing the pairs to their extreme support and resistance levels. Japan released a report at the start of the session which showed that corporate services prices fell in August.