Asia: Stocks decline on Saudi Arabia's air strikes in Yemen

LONDON (ShareCast) - Asian indices took a hit on Thursday after growing concerns over the Middle East in the wake of Saudi Arabia's air strikes on Yemen. Saudi Air Force launched the strikes overnight in an effort to defeat rebel Houthi fighters from the north of that country, causing an oil price spike.

Nikkei 225 declined 1.39% as a stronger yen hurt exporters. Foreign investment in Japanese stocks declined in March to ¥-352.8bn from ¥244.3bn the month before.

Hong's Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.13%, but the Shanghai composite index rose 0.58% as the People's Bank of China (HKSE: 3988-OL.HK - news) confirmed it plans to keep monetary policy prudent.

The bank posted a full-year net profit of ¥169.60bn, an 8% increase over the year before. It added that the Chinese economy "remained stable".

"The government will continue to adopt a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy, improve financing and credit structures," it said further.

Australia's ASX was also down 1.58% after Citi cut its 2015 forecasts for the country's gross domestic product (GDP) for 2015 by 0.3% to 2.4% and consumer price index by 0.6% to 1.9%.

The bank also expects the Royal Bank of Australia to cut its rates in May and August by 25 points each. There is also likely to be "very little" growth in government spending and moderate export growth in 2015, Citi added.

In corporate news, Japanese semiconductor company Tokyo Electron fell 5.78% and Sony (Swiss: SONC.SW - news) lost 3.3%.

PetroChina (HKSE: 0857-OL.HK - news) gained 5.83% despite posting a 17.3% fall in net profit due to the slump in oil prices and weaker demand for diesel. Sinopec Oilfield Service was down by 5%.

In Australia, the biggest losses were in banking stocks. National Australia Bank lost 1.65% and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Other OTC: CBAUF - news) declined 2.11%.