Asia shares fall as global energy crunch fuels inflation worries

Asia shares fall as global energy crunch fuels inflation worries

HONG KONG - Asian shares dropped and the safe-haven dollar held firm on Tuesday, as a global energy crunch fuelled inflation fears, clouding investor sentiment before the U.S. corporate earnings season. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.9% in early trade, after U.S. stocks ended the previous session with mild losses. U.S. stock futures, the S&P 500 e-minis, fell 0.43%. Australian shares slipped 0.29% while Japan's Nikkei stock index slid 1.03%. China's blue-chip CSI300 index was 0.75% lower, while the Hong Kong's Hang Seng index opened down 1.35%. "Risk markets had a mixed start to the week amid light data flow and ahead of the US earnings season," ANZ analysts said in a note. "Economies appear to be entering a more challenging phase of the cycle and we think investors and corporates will be monitoring how the economic data and earnings results fall before making assessments of near term direction." Also weighing on investor sentiment, Reuters reported that some of China Evergrande Group's offshore bondholders have not received interest payment by a Monday deadline. Rivals Modern Land and Sinic became the latest developers scrambling to delay bond payment deadlines. The Evergrande's debt troubles and contagion worries