The Kospi opened down just over 1% after some utterly crazy moves this week. The Korean index had been swinging upwards of 10% daily, and this looks like a much more ‘normal’ day.

Note though that the open breaks yesterday’s low, which isn’t a good sign.

In Japan, the Nikkei opened down 1.1%.

Asia stocks have shown less resilience than US markets this week on fears about energy price spikes and resulting inflation in Japan and Korea. Also, both markets have been much more frothy in the past year so there could be more of an incentive to take profits quickly.

Looking ahead, even if we can hold these loses and drop volatility, we could see dip buyers step in next week.