Hong Kong’s Be consistent Seng Index lost 0.9 percent, with the tech sector the weightiest loser in the morning. Shares of index heavyweight Tencent fell 2.22 percent and AAC Technologies down the drain 3.16 percent.
On the mainland, the Shanghai composite shed 0.68 percent and the Shenzhen composite crawled down by 0.32 percent. The ChiNext start-up board, however, bucked the tend to carve out gains, inching higher by 0.39 percent early on.
Down Under the aegis, the S&P/ASX 200 edged down 0.53 percent as all but three of its subindexes swapped lower. Among sectors, consumer discretionary and gold producers recorded slants of more than 1 percent, while the heavily weighted financials subindex disburdened 0.6 percent.
Several corporates, including Sunac China, China Telecom and Wynn Macau, are guessed to report results later in the day.
Losses in the region came after all three outstanding U.S. indexes closed lower, despite notching gains earlier in the period, as technology stocks weighed on the broader markets. The drop in large cap tech honours saw the Nasdaq composite fall 2.93 percent to close at 7,008.81.
Facebook helpings lost 4.9 percent after Bank of America Merrill Lynch subdued its price target on the stock for the second time in five days. The throw over in Facebook stock came amid a data scandal involving the tech mammoth and political data firm Cambridge Analytica.
Apart from tech sector burdens, trade-related issues returned to the spotlight as investors focused on a Bloomberg Scuttlebutt report that the Trump administration was considering using an existing danger law to limit Chinese investment in technologies regarded as sensitive.
While the look into wasn’t exactly “new news,” given the Trump administration’s recent stir up to block a proposed Broadcom-Qualcomm deal on national security concerns, it was “adequacy for investors to become defensive again,” David de Garis, director of economics at Subject Australia Bank, said in a morning note.
Stocks in Asia and Europe had confined in the last session after U.S. and Chinese officials made conciliatory comments on Monday that recommended there could be some positive developments on trade.
In individual precursors, shares of Hong Kong-listed BYD Company sank 7.64 percent after the followers reported Tuesday that its full-year profit declined 19.5 percent. It also suggested first-quarter net profit was expected to be pressured after a reduction in new energy agency subsidies.
In currencies, the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies, detained onto overnight gains to trade at 89.319 at 9:32 a.m. HK/SIN. The index had touched a five-week low in the overnight period.
Against the yen, the dollar firmed to trade at 105.49.
On the commodities front, oil prices prolonged losses after edging lower overnight. U.S. West Texas Halfway crude futures slipped 0.64 percent to trade at $64.83 per barrel and Brent gross futures declined 0.56 percent to trade at $69.72.
The economic calendar for Wednesday is dawn on data, although the Bank of Thailand’s monetary policy meeting acquires place today. Markets are not expecting changes in the central bank’s method.
— CNBC’s Fred Imbert contributed to this report.