By Chris Oliver, MarketWatch HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Asian stocks recovered from steep losses to trade mixed late Wednesday, with Shanghai's Composite surging 6.1% to lead regional gainers, as investors chased Sinopec shares on hopes that a new gasoline tax under consideration could herald market-based pricing for fuels. Other regional indexes traded lower, while India and the Philippines rose. Most declining markets pared back early losses in late trade, although the mood remained fairly downbeat amid evidence of further economic slowing in the region. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group ended 6.4% lower after the bank, Japan's largest, reported a 64% decline in fiscal first-half net income and said it would sell up to 1 billion shares in the next few months to strengthen its capital base. Japan's Nikkei 225 ended 0.7% lower at 8,272.22. South Korea's Kospi fell 1.9% to 1,016.82, and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was off 0.7% at 3,499.60. Shanghai's Composite Index ended 6.1% higher at 2,017.47, recouping some of its more than 6% fall in the previous session. Shanghai-listed shares of Sinopec climbed by the daily 10% limit amid expectations a fuel levy the authorities are mulling may be the first step toward ending state pricing of gasoline. Such a move could help refiners and other oil companies fatten their profit margins. Hong Kong-listed shares of Sinopec added 2.8%. In the China Daily report on Wednesday, citing a spokesman from the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Research Institute, government officials viewed the current low level of oil prices as an appropriate time to introduce a new fuel tax. Existing toll-road and other transport charges would be rolled back when the new tax is unveiled, the report said, without specifying the timetable for introducing the new tax. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index ended 0.8% lower at 12,815.80. Unemployment in the banking and shipping hub edged up to 3.5% in the three months ended in October, rising 0.1 percentage point from the third quarter, government data showed Tuesday. Asian stocks seemed to take few cues from a stronger session for stocks in New York Tuesday, where expectations-beating results from Hewlett Packard and Home Depot Inc. ) helped lift the Dow Jones Industrial Average 1.8% to 8,424.75. "People are looking at soft economic growth globally, recession talk is still going around, and we still see stimulus packages which are a bit slow to be implemented in Asia," said Jurg Kiener, head of advisory firm Swiss Asia Capital in Singapore. Added Patrick Bennett, a foreign-exchange strategist with SocGen in Hong Kong, in a research note Wednesday: "Reports of slower domestic economic activity are starting to permeate Asian headlines, replacing what has previously been a dominance of attention on the woes in the U.S. and more recently Europe." Taiwan's Taiex was down 0.5% at 4,284.09. Singapore's Straits Times Index fell 1.1% to 1,673.23 and New Zealand's NZSX-50 fell 0.3% to 2,706.28. Kuala Lumpur's Composite was down 0.7%, Bangkok's SET fell 1.4%, and Jakarta's Composite fell 1.5%. India's Sensex was up 1.3% and the Philippines Composite added 1.9%. Shares in Mazda Motor were down 1.1% on news Tuesday that Ford Motor Co. would sell cut its stake in the Japanese car maker to 13% from 33%, a deal that'll generate about $540 million for Ford. Mazda will buy back about a 7% stake from Ford for about $184.5 million, and the rest will be purchased by the Japanese automaker's business partners. Toyota Motor Corp.'s ) ended unchanged after the vehicle maker slashed its 2008 China sales target by 14% to 600,000 vehicles. Shares of Neptune Orient Lines Ltd. fell as much as 1.9% in Singapore after the shipping line said Wednesday it will cut about 1,000 staff positions globally, as part of efforts to reduce costs. Shares of Woodside Petroleum fell 3%, leading a general fallback among the commodity producers following weaker industrial-metals and crude-oil prices. PetroChina also logged gains in the wake of the fuel-tax talk; its Hong Kong-listed shares rose 0.9%. The December light sweet crude-oil contract fell to a 22-month low, closing at $54.39 a barrel Tuesday on Nymex, down 56 cents for the session. In electronic trading in late Tokyo the contract was down 6 cents at $54.33 a barrel. The U.S. dollar was traded at 96.80 yen, down from its level of 96.86 yen in late New York Tuesday, and 96.35 there late Monday. In other U.S. trading Tuesday, the S&P 500 ) added 8.37 points to 859.12 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.22 points to 1,483.27.

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