NEW YORK - Asian stocks started down on Thursday after inconclusive US midterm election results and a turbulent cryptocurrency market left Wall Street and European markets in a sea of red.
The uncertainty, especially about how the midterm results would impact inflation, transferred to Asia overnight.
Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Jakarta and Taipei were all trading lower.
"A purple dilemma might be the best way to describe the red-blue tangle that emerged Wednesday. It'll be gridlock, that's for sure," Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said of the US midterms.
"Perhaps not the friendliest kind for market participants, many of whom were hoping for a more resounding rebuke of Democrats given inflation realities."
All eyes are expected to turn to US inflation data, due later Thursday, to gauge the speed of future rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
"US growth looks still too strong to bring inflation down," Tapas Strickland of National Australia Bank said in a note.
"The ongoing resilience in the (consumer prices) data and stickiness in inflation continue to point to the Fed hiking rates closer to 5.0 percent or higher."
Fed officials have raised their policy rate to a range of between 3.75 to 4.0 percent.