Reflections of pedestrians on an electronics stock indicator at the window of a securities company in Tokyo, Japan.
Toshifumi Kitamura | AFP | Getty Images
SINGAPORE — Asia-Pacific stocks fell Tuesday, following a sell-off in tech stocks that weighed down major U.S. indexes overnight.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 led declines in early trade, shedding around 2.2% while the Topix moved 1.7% lower. South Korea’s Kospi fell around 1.4%.
In Australia, the ASX 200 inched down 0.8% ahead of the government’s budget announcement on Tuesday evening.
U.S. markets fell overnight as investors exited Big Tech stocks including Microsoft and Apple. The Nasdaq Composite suffered the largest loss, falling by 2.5%.
China’s inflation data for April will be on investors’ watchlist. Analysts polled by Reuters expect Chinese consumer prices rose 1% last month from a year ago, accelerating from 0.4% in March.
China is also expected to release results of its once-in-a-decade population census.
Elsewhere in the region, Southeast Asian countries Malaysia and the Philippines are scheduled to report first-quarter gross domestic product data.
Analysts in a Reuters poll expect Malaysia’s economy to shrink 2% in in the January-to-March quarter compared with a year ago and the Philippine economy to contract 3% in the same period.
Currencies and oil
In the foreign exchange market, the U.S. dollar strengthened slightly to 90.283 against a basket of its peers in early Asia trade.
The Japanese yen changed hands at 108.94 per dollar, while the Australian dollar dipped 0.08% against the greenback to $0.7824.
In oil markets, U.S. crude futures fell 0.71% to $64.46 per barrel, while global benchmark Brent was down 0.75% to $67.81 per barrel.
— CNBC’s Thomas Franck contributed to this report.
Source: CNBC