Nikkei drops on 4% as Asian markets follow Wall Street's plunge

Asian stocks plummeted in early trading Thursday following the skid on Wall Street.

Japan's Nikkei

NIK -3.89%

fell about 4% as stocks got added pressure from the yen's overnight bounce. The dollar was just above ¥ 112, versus ¥ 112.36 in late New York trade and ¥ 113 Wednesday morning. Through Wednesday, the dollar has fallen five straight days against the yen

USDJPY, -0.06%

and logged the biggest week-long drop since February, at 2%. And with a late drop in Treasury yields during U.S. trade, 10-year yields were down 0.14% and 30-years were down at 2.92%. Losses have spread across all sectors, with SoftBank Group

9984, -5.93%

and robotics company Fanuc

6954, -6.84%

down around 7%, while exporting-linking companies such as Toyota

7203, -2.50%

, Nintendo

7974, -3.26%

and Sony

6758, -4.17%

posted steep losses as well.

Chinese stocks have been more than 3%, putting mainland at the top of the multiyear indexes, extending the woes which have made Chinese equities among the world's worst performers this year. The Shanghai Composite Index

SHCOMP, -4.34%

is now down 20% for 2018.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng

HSI, -3.76%

slid more than 3%, a day after snapping has six-session losing streak, and was on pace to close at a new 15-month low. Tech stocks took a beating, with Sunny Optical

2382 -7.24%

, AAC Technologies

2018 -7.16%

and Tencent

0700 -7.26%

falling more than 5%. Automaker Geely

0175, -5.67%

, casino operator Galaxy Entertainment

0027, -4.89%

and oil company CNOOC

0883, -5.93%

also plunged.

Taiwan stocks fared even worse, with the Taiex

Y9999, -5.76%

down 5.7%, putting it on its lowest levels since May 2017. Heavyweights were down the board with tech stocks hurting the most, as Largan lens maker

3008 -9.89%

fell 9% and capacitor maker Yageo

2327 -6.26%

sank almost 7%.

Australia's ASX 200

XJO, -2.52%

dropped to levels last seen in late April and New Zealand's NZX 50

NZ50GR, -3.64%

is set to log its first nine-day losing streak since July 2011. Korea's Kospi

SEU, -3.46%

was off 2.8%, with Samsung

005930, -3.97%

down more than 2%. Singapore's stock benchmark

ITS -2.65%

skidded to 20-month lows while Malaysia's benchmark

FBMKLCI, -2.03%

hit three-month lows

Providing critical information for the U.S. trading day. Subscribe to MarketWatch 's free Need to Know newsletter. Sign up here.