Asian markets open down

Tokyo's Nikkei stock market opened down 1.4 percent and then made slight gains, but Japan's finance minister reportedly said the country has not lost faith in the dollar or U.S. Treasury bonds even after the U.S. credit rating was downgraded for the first time in history.

The news in other Asian markets was not so promising. Australia's S&P/ASX-200 index lost almost 2 percent in early trading and indexes in New Zealand fell more than 3 percent.

The mixed reports likely won't do much to quell growing concerns that Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+ could rock global financial markets.

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