Asian commodity stocks slumped after crude fell below $36 a barrel and copper dropped to a four-year low, countering advances by technology shares as computer-memory chip prices rallied, Bloomberg reported.
BHP Billiton Ltd., the world's biggest mining company, sank 4.6 percent in Sydney, and Inpex Corp., Japan's largest oil explorer, lost 1.9 percent. Panasonic Corp., which gets half its sales from outside Japan, rose 2.1 percent after the yen fell from a 13-year high. Samsung Electronics Co., the world's biggest computer-memory maker, gained 3.3 percent after the benchmark gauge of memory-chip prices climbed for the first time in six weeks.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index retreated 0.1 percent to 90.26 as of 9:58 a.m. in Tokyo, with three stocks advancing for every two that declined. The gauge has climbed 7.1 percent this week, and has gained 9.3 percent in December, putting it on course for its first monthly advance since April.
The MSCI Asia is still down 43 percent for the year, set for its worst annual performance in the benchmark's two-decade history as the global financial crisis dragged the world's biggest economies into recession. Analysts have slashed their average earnings-per-share estimate for companies on the index by 26 percent since the beginning of the year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average gained 0.1 percent to 8,679.08, reversing an earlier 0.8 percent drop. Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., the world's biggest maker of giant excavators, fell 2.1 percent after a newspaper said the company will scale back production.