Japanese stocks struggled to hold onto their opening gains early Tuesday
The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo resumed business after a long weekend, losing 93 points, or 0.7% to 14,311.67
Sony Corp. added 1%, Fujitsu Ltd. rose 1.7%, and Advantest Corp and Tokyo Electron Ltd. improved by 2.6% each.
Steel mills also advanced, with JFE Holdings Inc. rising 1.9%, and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. 1.5% higher. But telecoms weighed on the market, with Dow Jones Newswires reporting a price war has erupted among the major players offering Apple Inc.'s new line of iPhones.
Shares of NTT DoCoMo Inc. -- which just added the iPhone to its offerings -- fell 1.9%, while rivals Softbank Corp. and KDDI Corp dropped 2.1% and 4.1%, respectively. Shares of pharmaceutical firm Daiichi Sankyo Co. fell 5.8% after U.S. regulators banned imports from a key factory run by its Indian subsidiary Ranbaxy Laboratories.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index trimmed 71.89 points, or 0.3%, to 23,180.52
The Hang Seng Index's two most heavily weighted components both fell, with HSBC Holdings PLC off 0.3% after rallying on Monday, and China Mobile Ltd. also down 0.3%. Casino stocks were mixed as Kim Eng Securities reported Macau's September gaming revenue was trending 20% to 24% higher.
Galaxy Entertainment Corp. lost 1.4%, and Sands China Ltd. fell 0.4%, but Wynn Macau Ltd. and MGM China Holdings Ltd. rose 0.6% each, with J.P. Morgan hiking its price target on the latter's parent firm, citing strength in the Macau market. Shares of Tencent Holdings Ltd. lost 1.1% after announcing it was buying a little more than 36% of Sohu.com Inc.'s Sogou search-engine unit.
Australian equities fell early Tuesday, with losses in all major sectors pulling the benchmark away from its highest closing level since 2008.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia paced decliners in the financial group as its shares lost 1%, but National Australia Bank Ltd. outperformed with a gain of 0.3%. Mining stocks also struggled, with Rio Tinto Ltd. down 0.8% and BHP Billiton Ltd. off 0.7%.
But gainers included Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd., higher by 1.1% after the company said Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways increased its stake in the carrier to 14.4%.
In other markets;
The Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 slid 51.07 points, or 2.1%, to 2,427.32
The Taiex Index in Taiwan shed 5.56 points, or 0.1%, to 8,249.78
Korea’s Kospi Index discarded 7.79 points, or 0.4%, to 2,005.58
The Singapore Straits Times Index eked up 1.44 points, or 0.1%, to 3,180.92
In New Zealand, the Exchange 50 Gross Index added 4.40 points, or 0.1%, to 4,698.03
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 3.25 points, or 0.1%, to 5,251.24
