Benchmarks in Tokyo, Hong Kong and South-east Asia retreated while Shanghai was little-changed after Wall Street suffered its biggest decline in weeks.
Global oil demand is set to drop to levels last seen in the mid-1990s. Producers can’t slow their production fast enough. Storage tanks are running out of room. On Monday, the price of a US barrel to be delivered next month fell to below zero. That meant traders were paying others to take it off their hands so they wouldn't need to find places to store the swelling surplus.
"Global markets are struggling mightily with a temporary but overwhelming demand drop, ” said Stephen Innes of AxiCorp in a report. He said the June contract also could"fall prey to storage infrastructure saturation.”Some 94% of stocks in the index declined. That included winners in the new stuck-at-home economy. Netflix slipped 0.8% before it announced its quarterly results that included a 23% rise in global memberships.