Investing.com - Shares in Tokyo edged higher on Tuesday despite weak retail sales data and brewing trouble in Greece over the terms of a continued debt support.
The Nikkei 225 rose 0.43% after the break, while the Shanghai Composite eased 0.32% and the Hang Seng index declined 0.10%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.35%.
Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said late Monday that significant differences with creditors remain and that if Greece were to be pushed to agree to a deal that is was outside Syriza's pre-election commitments, he would call a referendum in order to have it validated.
But he said he still expects a deal by May 9.
"I have not decided for a referendum, let's be clear," Tsipras said. "I am answering to a hypothetical question. I truly believe we will reach an honorable agreement."
In Japan March preliminary retail sales data showed a drop of 9.7% year-on-year, compared to an expected drop of 7.3%, and posting the third straight year-on-year drop after -1.7% in February and -2.0% in January.
Overnight, stocks on the U.S. equities markets fell slightly on Monday, ahead of a highly-anticipated release of quarterly earnings from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:AAPL) after the bell.
A late sell-off in afternoon trading reversed earlier gains, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average saw its three-day rally screech to a halt. Heavy losses among biotech and healthcare stocks also offset mild gains in basic materials, as the NASDAQ Composite index and the S&P 500 Composite index both moved away from near-record gains.
The Dow fell 39 points or 0.22% to 18,041.14 on Monday, while the NASDAQ dropped 31.84 or 0.63% to 5,060.25. Earlier on Monday, the NASDAQ rose to 5,119.83, its highest level since it hit a record of 5,132.52 in March, 2000.
The S&P 500, meanwhile, reached an intra-day high of 2,125.92, before falling back to 2,109.39, down 8.30 or 0.39%.
The Commerce Department reported Friday that orders for durable goods, excluding aircraft, fell 0.5% in March, after a downwardly revised 2.2% drop in February.
The headline figure rose 4.0%, beating expectations for a 0.6% gain, but investors focused on underlying weakness in the report.
The data came after recent weak reports on home sales, retail sales and industrial production, adding to signs of a slowdown in economic growth since the start of the year.
The weak data led investors to push back expectations on the timing of an initial rate hike by the Federal Reserve.