Asian Shares Mostly Lower In Thin Holiday Trade

(RTTNews) - Asian stocks ended mostly lower in thin trade on Tuesday, with markets in China, South Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia closed for the Lunar New Year holidays.

Tariff worries persisted, with U.S. President Donald Trump's Treasury secretary pick, Scott Bessent, pushing for new tariffs and warning of a 'calamity' for middle-class Americans, if tax cuts expire at the end of this year.

The dollar strengthened against peers after Trump said he plans to impose sweeping tariffs on steel, aluminum, copper, semiconductor, and pharma imports in a push to increase U.S. production of the products.

Gold held steady in Asian trade as investors awaited cues from this week's Fed and ECB meetings.

Oil recovered some ground but hovered near a two-week low after the release of weak economic data from China.

Japanese markets led regional losses amid a rout in technology shares battered by concerns over a recently launched Chinese artificial intelligence model.

The Nikkei average tumbled 1.39 percent to 39,016.87 while the broader Topix index settled marginally lower at 2,756.90.

Softbank, an investment firm with major holdings in the technology sector, fell 5.2 percent while Advantest plummeted 11.1 percent and Tokyo Electron shed 5.7 percent.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index edged up by 0.14 percent to close at 20,225.11 in holiday-thinned trade. Alibaba Group Holding rose 1.2 percent and Tencent added 1.4 percent amid increased optimism over China's AI capabilities.

Australian markets ended slightly lower ahead of the release of Q4 CPI data on Wednesday. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 slid 0.12 percent to 8,399.10, with property developers, energy and tech stocks leading losses. The broader All Ordinaries index ended down 0.18 percent at 8,644.50.

Across the Tasman, New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX-50 index fell 0.33 percent to 12,957.15.

U.S. stocks ended lower overnight, with technology stocks coming under heavy selling pressure as DeepSeek's technological breakthrough cast doubt on Silicon Valley's hefty AI capex spending and the sustainability of the U.S. technical edge in artificial intelligence.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slumped 3.1 percent, while the Dow dipped 0.7 percent and the S&P 500 shed 1.5 percent.