Asian stocks down as oil fall

Asian stocks fell on Thursday as falling oil prices added to global growth concerns, while the dollar saw a bit of a respite against the yen and euro after successive sharp losses. Spreadbetters expected the bearish tone for equities to continue into Europe, forecasting Britain's FTSE to fall by as much as 0.3 per cent at the open, and Germany's DAX and France's CAX to start 0.4 per cent lower. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.7 per cent. The volatile Shanghai Composite Index shed earlier gains and fell 0.8 per cent. Tokyo's Nikkei lost 1 per cent. Crude oil prices fell as much as 5 per cent. Brent crude ticked up 0.8 per cent to $64.73 a barrel. The dollar edged up 0.3 per cent to 118.165 yen, getting some respite after retreating to as low as 117.445 from a seven-year high of 121.86. The euro was steady at $1.2449 after rising to $1.2496. The Australian dollar rose 0.1 per cent to $0.8325, according to Reuters.