Asian shares fell as commodities take a nosedive, and a potentially imminent Fed rate hike continue to rattle markets. Japan's Nikkei lost 0.64%, while China's Shanghai index fell 1.16%. Australia's S&P\ASX 200 index skidded 1.30%. Korea's KOSPI gave up 0.98%, while India's Nifty slipped 0.79%.

Wall Street ended Thursday's trading with deep losses, with Down Jones relinquishing 254 points, or 1.44% to 17,448. NASDAQ lost 61 points, or 1.22% to 5,005. S&P 500 fell 29 points, or 1.40% to 2,045.

Dollar pushed back after losses yesterday, with its index up 0.19% to 98.75. Dollar fell to a one-week low against Euro on Thursday at 1.0810, it advanced 0.23% today to 1.0791. Dollar fell to a similar low against Sterling, before recovering by 0.12% to 1.5210. It was almost flat against Yen at 122.63.

Yen advanced for the second day against Sterling, scaling 0.09% up to 186.52. It gained 0.22% against Euro to 132.32.

U.S. crude prices were hammered by more build-up in oil inventories, with the futures falling to a fresh ten-week low, losing a further 20 cents, or 0.48% to $41.55 a barrel, and coming perilously close to a 6-1\2 year low reached in August at $37.75. Brent futures for December recovered a bit however, rising 5 cents, or 0.11% to $45.22 a barrel.  

Canadian dollar fell to a ten-week low against U.S. dollar before recovering to C$1.3298. Australian dollar muscled ahead for the second day, trading 0.12% higher at $0.7134.

 Gold futures fell to a four-month low yesterday, before recovering a dollar, or 0.10% to $1,082 an ounce. Silver futures were down by 2 cents, or 0.18% to $14.23 an ounce.

A flurry of economic data is released today.  German preliminary GDP reading is forecast to show a growth of 0.3% q\q for third quarter, a touch lower than the second quarter's 0.4% growth. A flash GDP estimate for the whole Eurozone is expected to show a 0.4% growth q\q. lower numbers would further push ECB into more easing in December, bringing the Euro down.

From U.S., retail sales are forecast to have grown 0.3% in October m\m, while producer price index PPI is forecast to have grown 0.2% in October m\m.  Matching the forecasts would further enhance the chances of a Fed rate hike in September, pushing Dollar higher.