Asian stocks weak-kneed in Tuesday trading, Japan and China mixed on the day

• Risk-off sentiment remains a handicap in Asian markets for Tuesday as investor confidence continues to cool.
• The broad Asia-Pacific region is down -12% over the past four weeks as trade war fears plague global markets.

Asian equities are seeing limited gains and mixed losses in Tuesday trading as investors remain squeamish amidst resurfacing trade war tensions between the US and China.

Wall Street closed out Monday’s trading on a weaker note with US indexes on pace to see their worst October performance since the 2008 financial collapse, and the risk-off sentiment is continuing over into Tuesday’s early Pacific-Asia trading window, seeing minor declines in threatened China equities while Japan’s bourses trade notably cautious.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 is up 0.75% on the day, with the Tokyo Topix index up a comparable 0.80%, but both indexes remain steeply off of their one-month highs, in the red by almost -12% from a month ago. Australia’s ASX 200 is coiled tightly for Tuesday, trading at 0.08%, with the MSCI broad Pacific-Asia index down -0.55%, while Chinese stocks continue to see investors leaking out of the doors, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index declining by a little over -1.0% and Shanghai’s CSI 300 retreating by  -0.80% in early-hours trading, and almost all major Asia indexes are down by almost -12% over a single month, save for Australia, which remains relatively more under control at -8% for the month.

Nikkei 225 levels to watch

Japan’s leading index is back up into 21,400.00, the peak of Monday’s trading, and the major bourse continues to plumb into lows near 20,750.00 as investors remain cautious in the face of renewed threats of tariffs between the US and China; the battered Nikkei, which managed to recover most of 2018’s losses back into January’s highs near 24,500.00, sees itself trading back into six-month lows, and a fresh break to the downside will have the Nikkei 225 challenging 2018’s lows near 20,290.00.