CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Asian stocks ended mostly lower on Tuesday as a tech rally fizzled out due to valuation concerns and investors weighed mixed messages from Federal Reserve officials over the path of interest rates.
As the U.S. government entered its sixth week, a survey showed the U.S. industrial remains under pressure from weak growth and tariff-related uncertainty.
China's Shanghai Composite index dropped 0.41 percent to 3,960.19 due to uncertainty around domestic economic recovery. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 0.79 percent to 25,952.40.
China's ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, today urged Washington to avoid crossing Beijing's 'red lines' so a trade truce sealed between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping can hold.
He named Taiwan, democracy and human rights, China's political system, and development rights as Beijing's four red lines, adding: 'The most important thing is to respect each other's core interests and major concerns.'
Japanese markets tumbled as tech stocks succumbed to profit taking and a survey showed Japan's manufacturing activity shrank at the fastest pace in 19 months in October.
The Nikkei average fell 1.74 percent to 51,497.20 as traders returned to their desks after a long holiday weekend. The broader Topix index closed 0.65 percent lower at 3,310.14.
Technology investor SoftBank Group plunged 7 percent and chip-testing equipment maker Advantest plummeted 5.9 percent.
Tokyo Electron added 1.8 percent after hiking its operating profit forecast by 2.8 percent for the year ending March 2026.
Seoul stocks slumped to snap a four-day winning streak amid massive foreign sell-off. Investors also digested government data that showed South Korea's consumer prices rose in October at the fastest pace in more than a year.
The Kospi average lost 2.37 percent to close at 4,121.74 after the recent surges driven by expectations surrounding the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering last week.
Samsung Electronics plunged 5.6 percent and SK Hynix nosedived 5.5 percent on profit taking after surging to record highs Monday.
Australian markets ended sharply lower to hit over one-month lows as the Reserve Bank of Australia left the cash rate unchanged at 3.60 percent in a widely expected decision and warned of persistent inflationary pressures.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 dipped 0.91 percent to 8,813.70 while the broader All Ordinaries index ended down 0.92 percent at 9,098.20. Lower iron ore prices weighed on the mining sector, with BHP Billiton falling 1.9 percent and Rio Tinto losing 2.6 percent.
Novonix shares fell more than 10 percent to hit a one-month low after a unit of Stellantis terminated its offtake agreement with the battery materials producer.
Across the Tasman, New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX-50 index rose 0.37 percent to 13,605.96, extending gains for an eighth consecutive session to close at a record high.
The dollar hovered near a three-month high and gold traded below $4,000 an ounce after three top Fed officials pushed back against expectations of another interest rate cut in December. Oil edged lower after four days of gains.
Overnight, U.S. stocks ended mixed after a survey showed economic activity in the U.S. manufacturing sector contracted in October for the eighth consecutive month.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained half a percent and the S&P 500 edged up by 0.2 percent on the heels of OpenAI's announcement of $38 billion deal with Amazon's AWS cloud computing arm, and news that Microsoft will ship the latest Nvidia chips to the United Arab Emirates for the first time. The narrower Dow fell half a percent.
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