Investing.com - Asian shares fell on Tuesday, taking a cue from Wall Street and on mixed regional data and concerns about the dollar ahead of President Trump's State-of-the-Union speech later which could include more on recent trade spats.
Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.18%. Japan reported household spending down 2.5% on month, more that the 0.6% decline seen on month and down 0.1% annually, compared to an increase of 1.6% expected on year for December. As well, the unemployment rate ticked up to 2.8% from a steady 3.7% seen and retail sales rose 3.6%, compared to a gain of 1.8% expected on year.
Automakers still picked up gains: Toyota rose 0.68% and Honda gained 0.35%.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 eased 0.78%. In Australia, the NAB business confidence and NAB business survey came in near expectations at plus-11 and plus-13 respectively. Mining names were mixed: Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) traded higher by 0.11%, while BHP lost 0.88%.
In Greater China, the Shanghai Composite dipped 0.74% and the Hang Seng index fell 0.83%.
Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) fell 177.23 points, or 0.67%, to 26,439.48, the S&P 500 (SPX) lost 19.34 points, or 0.67%, to 2,853.53 and the Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) dropped 39.27 points, or 0.52%, to 7,466.51.