By 
By Kevin Plumberg
European stock market futures pointed to a lower open, as economic gloom spread.
Friday's December U.S. payrolls report, which showed more than half a million jobs lost and the highest unemployment rate since 1993, aggravated anxiety that consumer demand for Asian exports is nowhere near recovering, keeping oil prices near $40 a barrel.
"The negativity still sits in the market, nothing's really changed in 2009," said Dominic Vaughan, senior dealer at CMC Markets in Australia. "In the next three to six months we've still got difficult times ahead for commodity markets and global markets as well," he said.
The MSCI index of stocks in Asia-Pacific outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> fell 2.7 percent, down for a fourth day after a rally that lifted the gauge to a one-month high fizzled last week.
Japan's markets were closed for a public holiday.
Australia's benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index <.AXJO> fell 1.4 percent and the country's currency fell to a two-week low after a private sector survey showed a sharp drop in job advertisements, suggesting Thursday's official employment data could reflect weakness.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index <.HSI> declined 2.9 percent for a fifth straight falling session, matching a losing streak in October. Commodity-related stocks were under pressure, and airline shares slid after China Eastern Airlines <0670.HK> said it would report a large 2008 loss partly because of bad hedges on fuel price contracts.
The euro was under broad pressure ahead of a European Central Bank policy meeting on Thursday, at which policymakers are expected to cut rates by a half-percentage point to 2 percent.
WANTED: YIELD
A collapse in European manufacturing as well as the increased risk of sovereign debt rating downgrades in Europe put pressure on the ECB to cut rates and catch up with other big central banks. The Bank of England has cut borrowing costs to a record low and the Federal Reserve has set rates within a range of zero to 0.25 percent.
The euro fell 0.4 percent against the U.S. dollar to $1.3424. Against the yen, the euro was down 0.4 percent to 120.99 after an aggressive selloff on Friday.
The U.S. dollar was trading largely unchanged at 90.15 yen, as the need for safety increased demand for both currencies.
Aluminum producer Alcoa
Last week, capital slowly flowed back into riskier assets, though investor caution after such a devastating 2008 also kept money market funds absorbing fresh investment.
Even non-investment grade bonds saw heavy demand last week as hunger for yield and bargain hunting drove portfolio managers out from the sidelines. High yield bond funds took in $910.9 million in new investment, the highest weekly inflow since Boston-based research firm EPFR Global began tracking the data four years ago.
"The winning run by High Yield Bond Funds has been driven by a combination of gradually rising risk appetite, a hunger for yield, short covering and the quality of some debt that has dropped into the high yield/junk pool in recent months," said Brad Durham, EPFR Global managing director in a note.
In Asia, the cost of insuring investment-grade debt against default and restructuring eased a bit but investors were not yet ready to jump head-first back into risk.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note was up a touch to 2.41 percent from 2.39 percent late on Friday in New York, when the U.S. payrolls report caused a rush to safety.
The jobs data also hit a nerve in commodity markets.
U.S. light crude for February delivery fell 2.5 percent to $39.80 a barrel, flirting with a sustained drop below the psychologically important $40 level.
News that OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia plans to cut oil output to below its agreed target for the cartel, ongoing supply disruptions in Europe from the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute and tensions in the Middle East did little to sway the market from a focus on dwindling world-wide energy demand.
(Additional reporting by Sonali Paul in MELBOURNE; Editing by Jan Dahinten)
