Global Markets Fall Slightly

Asia-Pacific stocks were lower Tuesday, following some overnight weakness in Europe and the U.S.

Later this week will be heavy on economic data and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet, which is keeping some market participants sidelined.

And China's recent stock slide has generated caution. Shanghai stocks opened down slightly Tuesday while shares in Shenzhen, which underperformed Monday, rose modestly. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.6%.

There is a "lack of any prominent leads that we are likely to see in the Asian market today," said Jingyi Pan, a market strategist at IG Group. "Investors are just sitting on their hands waiting for [key drivers] to come."

Japanese stocks were lagging, with the Nikkei recently down 0.4% following overnight yen gains. The U.S. dollar was back below Yen111 for a while in early Asian trading, nearly Monday's low, but it was recently around Yen111.05 versus Yen111.40 when local equities trading ended Monday.

Nintendo fell 1.5% after hitting a fresh nine-year high to start the week, with oil company Inpex down as well as U.S. oil futures retreated. After dropping from 2 1/2 -year highs Monday, futures were down another 0.4% in Asia trading at $57.87 a barrel.

Oil's weakness also capped stock gains in Australia, though the S&P/ASX 200 was still up 0.2%, at its resistance level of about 6000. New Zealand's benchmark dropped 0.3% after hitting a fresh record closing high Monday.

If OPEC and its partners in a production-capping deal agree on anything less than a six-month extension to the current program, that "would upset the apple cart," said Shane Chanel, an equities and derivatives adviser at ASR Wealth Advisers. Most are predicting an nine additional months.

Korea's Kospi stock index was off 0.1% Tuesday morning as Samsung Electronics--which slumped 5% yesterday following a Morgan Stanley downgrade--fell another 0.8%.

Write to Ese Erheriene at ese.erheriene@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 27, 2017 21:00 ET (02:00 GMT)