Asian Markets retreat on US fiscal cliff fears !!!

Asian stocks mostly fell on Thursday as investors reacted to the prospect of drawn-out negotiations over the looming US "fiscal cliff" by shedding riskier assets, but Japanese equities bucked the trend as a sharp slide in the yen lifted exporters' shares. The retreat from risk also weighed on commodities, with the exception of oil, which jumped in the previous session due to rising tensions in the Middle East after Israel launched an offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza. "Of course we did just see a sharp sell-off on Wall Street as we approach that fiscal cliff," said Stan Shamu, market analyst at IG Markets in Melbourne. "It just seems that there's not much confidence out there." MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.9 per cent, with shares in South Korea , Australia and Hong Kong all losing 1 per cent or more. But Tokyo's Nikkei rose 0.9 per cent as the boost given to exporters such as Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co and Canon Inc. by a slide in the yen the previous day outweighed global concerns.