Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Tuesday as investors adopted a cautious tone ahead of key events from OPEC talks to the US jobs report and Italy's referendum. Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei share average dropped in line with Wall Street, while a stronger yen hurt sentiment and insurers took a breather from recent gains. Among the other Asian markets, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia are all in negative territory. Bucking the trend, Taiwan, Shanghai and Indonesia are higher.
Nikkei 225 declined 65.63 points or 0.36% to 18,291.26, Straits Times dipped 5.49 points or 0.19% to 2,869.16, Hang Seng dropped 11.03 points or 0.05% to 22,819.54, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI slipped 1.41 points or 0.09% to 1,627.25, and KOSPI Index was down by 3.60 points or 0.18% to 1,974.53.
On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted added 19.55 points or 0.21% to 9,241.79, Jakarta Composite gained 48.01 points or 0.94% to 5,162.58, and Shanghai Composite was up by 14.66 points or 0.45% to 3,291.66.