Asian shares tumbled lower after a heavy sell-off on Wall Street made investors nervous about stock markets.

Japan's Nikkei fell the most - down 4% at 17,009.48 - with the index on the brink of breaching the resistance level of 17,000 for the first time since September.

US shares fell more than 2% as a oil stockpiles report and a Federal Reserve survey suggested more sluggish growth.

Weak economic data from Japan also dented investors' sentiment.

Government data showed that core machinery orders surprisingly fell 14.4% in November from the previous month - down for the first time in three months in the world's third largest economy.

Worries over China's growth also continued to plague trading in the region.

The Shanghai Composite index was down 1.6% to 2,903.19, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dropped 1.9% to 19,553.30 in early trade.

Shares fell despite regulators announcing late on Wednesday that they had stepped up monitoring share-selling by listed companies' major shareholders.

The securities commission also said that its transition to a US-style registration system for listings would be a gradual process and not lead to a surge in initial public offerings (IPOs).

The announcement was the latest in a series of measures to support the market after heavy losses since last week.

Brent crude prices, meanwhile, fell 1.6% to $29.84, again trading below the key $30 level.

Bernard Aw, market strategist at trading firm IG, said oil prices would not see much recovery this year amid a supply glut.

"Oil prices should continue to remain low, where a sustained pick-up is expected only in the third quarter of 2017," he said in a note on Thursday.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index was lower by 1.8% to 4,898 points.

Better employment data did little to boost sentiment. The unemployment rate in the country was 5.8% in December, with fewer jobs lost than economists were expecting.

The country lost 1,000 new jobs, as against expectations of 10,000.

In South Korea, the benchmark Kospi index was lower by 1.7% at 1,883.88 after its central bank kept interest rates on unchanged for the seventh consecutive month.

Shares of Samsung Electronics were down 1.1%, despite the tech giant announcing that it would mass-produce Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 mobile processors - a big win for its manufacturing business.

(BBC)