Commodities fall hits Asian markets

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Asian share markets fell on Thursday after a second big sell-off in commodities in less than a week sparked a retreat from riskier investments, including stocks, although oil and silver managed to claw back some of their losses.

Oil prices tumbled over 4 percent on Wednesday after an unexpected rise in gasoline stocks and concerns about slowing demand triggered a rout across the commodities complex that pushed the Reuters/Jeffries CRB index <.CRB>, a broad measure of commodities performance, down 3 percent.

Silver fell 8 percent, dragging down gold. Copper crumbled to its lowest level since December, and the euro fell to a three-week low versus the dollar, hurt also by bubbling concerns about a Greek debt restructure.

Oil prices partly recovered in early Asian trade, with U.S. crude futures up 1.3 percent at $99.47 and Brent crude up 1.2 percent at $113.88.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 <.N225> was trading down 0.8 percent by 0050 GMT, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 <.AXJO> slipped 1.3 percent to a six-week low, and South Korea's Kospi <.KS11> was down 1.4 percent.

Miners such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto led the decline in Australia, while Japan's biggest oil and gas developer Inpex Corp <1605.T> fell 3.0 percent.

The abrupt fall in commodity prices after last week's near-record slump knocked about 1 percent off U.S. stock indices, and boosted the U.S. dollar on safe-haven buying.

The euro fell back to a six-week low against the yen and was little changed in early Asian trade, holding around $1.4218, and at 115.11 against the yen.

Speculation over whether Greece will receive more bailout funding kept risk appetite volatile as investors continued to price in a high probability that the country will eventually need to restructure its debt.

Gold partly retraced its losses in Asia, adding 0.3 percent to $1,504.65 an ounce, while volatile spot silver jumped 2.3 percent after sinking nearly 9 percent in the previous session.

U.S. corn futures extended Wednesday's 4 percent plunge on the expectation of higher near-term stocks.

(Reporting by Richard Pullin; Editing by Andrew Marshall)