Asian stocks slid Wednesday, with major indexes declining by more than 1 percent each as an attempted rally on Wall Street failed to take off on concerns of lower oil prices, economic growth and China.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its global growth forecast for 2016 overnight to 3.4 percent, from 3.6 percent pointing to slower growth in emerging markets, especially in China, falling commodity prices, and rising interest rates in the U.S. as potential risks to global growth.
Markets in China opened in negative territory, following a 3.5 percent gain in the previous session which showed negative a full-year growth number for 2015.
The Shanghai composite was down 1.37 percent and the Shenzhen composite declined by 1.15 percent. Equity markets reacted by surrendering all of Tuesday's rare gains. The CSI300 was down 1.64 percent.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan sank 2.1 percent to reach depths not seen since late 2011 and Japan's Nikkei fell 2.2 percent, leaving it 20 percent below last year's peak.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 3.77 percent while in South Korea, the Kospi extended losses to trade down 2.73 percent.
US Crude
U.S. crude floundered at its lowest since 2003 after the world's energy watchdog warned the market could "drown in oversupply". U.S. crude futures shed 53 cents to $27.93, while Brent crude lost 24 cents to $28.52 a barrel.
Early gains on Wall Street were erased by the slump in U.S. crude. The Dow ended Tuesday up 0.17 percent, while the S&P 500 rose a single point and the Nasdaq eased 0.26 percent.
The S&P energy sector dropped 2.17 percent as the 12-year lows in oil prices fueled fears of deeper losses for energy companies and the risk some may fail to pay their debts.