Investing.com - Asian shares trended lower on Tuesday with a stronger yen hitting Tokyo and after the overnight drop on Wall Street.
The Nikkei 225 lost 0.6% as the yen strengthened against the dollar, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.2% and South Korea's KOSPI lost 0.3%.
In China, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was less than 0.1% lower and the Shanghai Composite dropped 0.1%.
Investors were also waiting for a flurry of Chinese economic data scheduled for release over the coming days. On Thursday, the region's largest economy will release its trade data, while early next week it will put out its second-quarter growth figures.
In corporate news, the focus was on Samsung Electronics Co (KS:005930) , which released a weak earnings guidance, projecting a 24% decline in second-quarter operating profit from a year earlier. The electronics giant blamed a strong South Korean won, which has been trading at a six-year high.
Despite the poor guidance, the company's share price jumped as much as 2.1% higher in early trading, as the stock had already fallen 11% in anticipation of the weak numbers, though it soon moderated to just a 0.1% gain.
Overnight, U.S. stocks fell after investors locked in gains from last week's bullish jobs report and jumped to the sidelines ahead of second-quarter earnings that will begin hitting the wire this week.
The Dow 30 fell 0.26%, the S&P 500 index fell 0.39%, while the NASDAQ Composite index fell 0.77%.
Stocks rose last week after the Department of Labor reported that non-farm payrolls rose by 288,000 in June, easily surpassing expectations for an increase of 212,000.
However, by Monday trading after a holiday weekend in the U.S., profit takers ended gains, as markets prepped for earnings season to begin.
U.S. metals giant Alcoa Inc (NYSE:AA) was due to release its second-quarter earnings on Tuesday.
Elsewhere, investors also waited on the sidelines for the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve's June policy meeting on Wednesday, which may hold clues concerning the direction of monetary policy.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) said it expected the Fed to raise interest rates in the third quarter of 2015 as opposed to the first quarter of 2016 made in an earlier prediction, though uncertainty ahead of the release of the Fed minutes kept investors at bay.