Asian Stocks Tumble Yet Again, Europe Follows Suit

Asian stocks were mostly lower on Wednesday due to a strengthening of the US dollar and declining oil prices. A stronger U.S. dollar adds pressure to commodity prices - which in turn led to a strong sell-off in the commodity heavy Australian market. Australia's ASX index lost 1.47 percent, led by a 5.11 percent decline in its energy subindex and a 5.91 percent decline in the materials subindex. Taiwan's TSEC index lost 1.31 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index lost 0.73 percent, India's Mumbai Sensex index lost 0.04 percent and China's Shanghai index gained 0.17 percent.

Japan's market was closed for a national holiday. European equities were also mostly lower with more than 4 hours of trading remaining. The broad Euro Stoxx 50 index was lower by 0.84 percent. The UK's FTSE index was among one of the worst performing major indices, down 1.27 percent on poor earnings from the retailer Next and grocery store chain Sainsbury. Commodity-linked stocks, including Randgold Resources and Glencore were also seeing heavy selling pressure. Germany's DAX index was lower by 0.75 percent while France's CAC index was lower by 0.66 percent.