Shares of Asian markets lost grounds and closed lower on Friday, led by Japan and Hong Kong's indexes on reports that the ahead of U.S. employment report due to be released today. Oil continued to trade below $42-a-barrel mark, indicating that the consumers in major economies continue to reduce their demand for crude and gasoline. A light sweet crude-oil futures for February delivery was moving up by 15 cents to $41.85 a barrel in Singapore's electronic trading on Friday. The prices have been traded at multi-year low levels in the last few weeks. On Thursday, February crude-oil futures dropped by as much as 93 cents, to $42.00 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange in overnight trading on negative sentiment. In currency trading, the yen bolstered as it changed hands at 91.08 yen per U.S. dollar in Asia on Friday, after it closed at 90.59 yen per dollar late Thursday in New York. The Japanese Nikkei 225 average closed higher by 39.62 points or 0.45 percent to 8,836.80 points; while, the broader Topix index closed down by 0.7 at 855.02 points. Shares of Toyota Motor, the country's largest car maker, moved lower by 2.2 percent, Honda Motor Co. dropped 3.0 percent and Nissan Motor declined by as much as 5 percent. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index rallied and closed higher by 38.47 points or 0.27 percent at 14,377.44 points, and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, also finished 0.5 percent lower at 7,723.81 points. In China, the Shanghai composite index closed higher with a 1.4 percent gain to 1,904.861 points on Friday. In India, the Sensex or Sensitive Index was trading lower by 2.1 percent in afternoon session in Mumbai at 9,836.22 points, as it continued to survive the country's largest accounting scam. Shares of Satyam Computers Ltd further slumped by 43 percent, pushing its total drop to 87 percent since Chairman Raju admitted to have inflated earnings and assets by more than $1 billion. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 index finished higher by 1.1 percent at 3,735.7 points in Sydney led by the advances registered by the shares of major resources companies of the country. In the mining sector, shares of BHP Billiton, the world's biggest miner, moved higher by 3.1 percent in Sydney trading. Elsewhere, South Korea's Kospi retreated from the gains in the previous sessions and closed lower by 2.1 percent to 1,180.96 points in Seoul despite rate cuts announced on Friday. South Korea's central bank has reduced its key benchmark interest rate on Friday to a new record low to curb the slowdown in the economy that is hit hard by the on-going financial turmoil. The Bank of Korea slashed the seven-day repurchase rate to 2.5 percent from 3 percent in Seoul today for the fifth time since early October as the country deals with slumping exports and dropping stock values. The Bank of Korea also lowered the rate on special loans for smaller companies by 25 basis points to 1.5 percent.

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