Asia, Pacific markets mixed

(CNN) -- Japanese and Australian stock markets closed in negative territory Friday, but Chinese and Korean exchanges held onto their gains at closing time.

Australia's All Ordinaries index fell slightly at its opening and rebounded midday before closing down 0.92 percent. Japan's Nikkei also opened weak and gained ground around lunchtime before closing nearly flat, down 0.08 percent.

But Hong Kong's Hang Seng index, which had been up more than 2 percent at noon, remained up 1.93 percent in late afternoon trading. And Seoul's KOSPI closed 2.14 percent higher.

The moves followed fresh tumbles on Wall Street as a rash of job cuts at major companies added to jitters ahead of Friday's November jobs report. Weak retail sales, a pummeling in commodities and the future of the Big Three automakers were also weighing on sentiment.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 215 points, or 2.5 percent, recovering from a decline of as much as 332 points during the day. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 2.9 percent and the Nasdaq composite retreated 3.1 percent.

Stocks seesawed through the morning, but turned lower in the last hour of the session. Wall Street has been reversing direction fairly regularly in the last hour of trading each day recently.

"It's the 3 o'clock shuffle," said Joseph Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading.

Saluzzi said that with the uncertainty about the automakers and the worry about the November jobs report due Friday, investors would rather back out of stocks. Oil prices are at an almost four-year low and a selloff in gold and other metals kept the global recession in focus and added to the stock selling, he said.

Stocks had gained in the previous two sessions, rallying despite dour readings on the labor market and a weak Federal Reserve "Beige Book" survey of the economy.