Asian Stocks Mixed In Cautious Trading

(RTTNews) - Asian stocks are turning in a mixed performance on Tuesday, weighed down by overnight weak close on Wall Street amid concerns surrounding valuations of AI related stocks, and geopolitical tensions following China's military exercises around Taiwan, and Ukraine's drone strikes near Russian President Vladimir Putin's residence.

Profit taking in precious metals triggered weakness in resources stocks in most of the stock exchanges in the region. Volumes remained thin ahead of upcoming New Year holidays.

The Australian market slipped, weighed down by losses in resources stocks. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was down 16.21 points or 0.19% at 8,709.49, while the broader All Ordinaries index slid to 9,016.30, down 15.70 points or 0.17% from previous close.

Catalyst Metal, Newmont Corporation, Evolution Mining, Neuren Pharmaceuticals, Capstone Copper and Genesis Minerals lost 2.5 to 4%.

James Hardie Industries, Droneshield, Amcor, Woodside Energy, Netwealth Group, QBE Insurance, Tabcorp Holdings and Santos gained 1 to 3%,

Japanese stocks fell Tuesday morning, pushing the Nikkei 225 down to a low of 50,198.07. The index recovered 50,465.35 by the end of the morning session, but was still down 61.57 points or 0.12%.

Sumitomo Metal Mining fell 3.7%. Rakuten, Shiseido, Mercari, Japan Steel Works, Toto, Dowa Holdings, Mitsubish Materials, Konica Minolta, Nintendo, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, T&D Holdings, Softbank Group and Hino Motors lost 1 to 2%.

Nidec Corp. and Fujitsu climbed nearly 2%. Sumitomo Dainippon, Murata Manufacturing, Furukawa Electric, Inpex Corp., Osaka Gas and Dainippon Screen Manufacturing gained 1 to 1.5%.

The Chinese market also showed weakness. The Shanghai Composite Index slipped to 3,956.78, losing about 0.21%, a little before the end of the morning session.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.36% to 25,7823.50,

South Korea's KOSPI declined marginally to 4,217.95. Industrial output in South Korea climbed a seasonally adjusted 0.6% on month in November, Statistics Korea said on Tuesday.

That missed forecasts for an increase of 2.2% following the downwardly revised 4.2% contraction in October (originally -4%). On a yearly basis, production stumbled 1.4% - also missing expectations for a gain of 3% after sinking a downwardly revised 8.2% in the previous month (originally -8.1%).

New Zealand's NZX 50 edged up marginally, while Singapore's SET climbed 0.2%. The markets in Indonesia and Malaysia drifted lower.