Asian, European Markets In The Red As Doha Conference Ends With No Deal

Crude oil plummeted more than 6 percent during Asia's trading session after a meeting in Doha between OPEC and non-OPEC members failed to reach a consensus conclusion. Representatives of some of the world's largest oil exporting nations gathered in Qatar to discuss a freeze in incremental oil outputs. The meeting may have been doomed to failure before even starting as Iran said at the last minute it won't attend and Saudi Arabia has been consistent in its view that it will only freeze output if Iran also agrees to do so. Crude oil did rebound from its session lows and was seen lower by around 2.50 percent and trading above the $40 per barrel mark by 7:00 AM ET.

Asian equities indices were for the most part all trading in the red. Japan's Nikkei index lost 3.40 percent, China's Shanghai index lost 1.44 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index lost 0.73 percent, Taiwan's TSEC lost 0.40 percent and Australia's ASX index lost 0.37 percent. On the other hand, India's Mumbai Sensex gained 0.74 percent. European equities were mixed with more than 4 hours of trading remaining. Germany's DAX index was an outlier and was higher by 0.06 percent, outperforming the broad Euro Stoxx 50 index which was lower by 0.25 percent. The UK's FTSE 100 was lower by 0.24 percent while France's CAC index was lower by 0.10 percent. Gold for April delivery gained 0.35 percent ahead of the U.S. trading session.