Asian stocks in full retreat at the open, China's Shanghai down -2% with Nikkei off -3.5% and counting

Asian market equities are in full decline across the board for Thursday, following Wall Street's lead and opening deeply in the red heading into the end of the week.

Wall Street saw major US bourses wipe out 2018's gains for the year in Wednesday's late session, and Asian equities are continuing to broad sell-off, with the Pacific indexes in the red across the board early in the day.

Japan is steeply off of yesterday's closing prices, with the Nikkei 225 retreating nearly -3.5% in Thursday's early trading, while the Tokyo Topix index is down -2.75%, while China sees comparable losses, with the Hong Kong Hang Sang index retracting by -2.10% and Shanghai's CSI 300 index in the red by -2.00% in early-hours action.

Australia's ASX 200 is also in full retreat, declining -2.10% on the day, while emerging markets also see declines but remain conspicuously more buoyant by comparison, with the MSCI broad Asia-Pacific index declining -0.45% on the day.

The rout that started in the US session, led by rapid declines in tech stocks, is seeing global markets bleed investor cash as traders head for the hills, and the late-week could see further declines as market optimism rapidly fades.

Nikkei 225 levels to watch

Japan's leading equity index is in full-on sell-off mode, down to 21,400.00 after slipping from Monday's peak at 22,685.00 which knocked on the 200-hour moving average briefly before getting pushed back down, and the bourse is now testing into six-month lows. The next support zone is seen at 20,900.00, a level the index hasn't seen since the index first sold off amid broad-market panic in January of this year.