Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Tuesday as the political tinderbox in the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula added to uncertainty over the looming French vote, pushing edgy investors into safer assets such as the yen and Treasuries. Meanwhile, Japanese stocks fell, hurt by a combination of rising geopolitical tensions, a stronger yen and volatile trading in Toshiba Corp shares ahead of the third deadline for its earnings filing. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan are lower. Bucking the trend, Indonesia is higher.
Nikkei 225 dipped 112.55 points or 0.60% to 18,685.33, Straits Times slipped 11.81 points or 0.37% to 3,169.64, KOSPI Index contracted 13.63 points or 0.64% to 2,119.69, Taiwan Weighted crumbled 52.34 points or 0.53% to 9,830.20, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI dropped 5.15 points or 0.30% to 1,734.37, Shanghai Composite declined 15.16 points or 0.46% to 3,254.24 and Hang Seng was down by 207.79 points or 0.86% to 24,054.39.
On the flip side, Jakarta Composite was up by 8.60 points or 0.15% to 5,652.90.