Japan's Nikkei share average ended at a more than two-week low on Tuesday, as the yen strengthened after U.S. President Donald Trump fired a Federal Reserve governor.
The Nikkei snapped a two-session winning run, falling 0.97% to 42,394.4, its lowest close since August 8.
The broader Topix slipped 1.08% to 3,071.99.
"The market was surprised with the news about Cook and reacted accordingly," said Shuutarou Yasuda, a market analyst at Tokai Tokyo Intelligence Laboratory.
"Also, investors calmed down from the previous session, in which optimism about the Federal Reserve's policy loosening boosted equities. We will have to wait for more data until the Fed's policy decision."
Wall Street stocks ended lower overnight as investors parsed the U.S. interest rates outlook and looked ahead to AI chipmaker Nvidia's quarterly earnings this week.
The yen rose to as high as 146.99 to the dollar earlier in the session after Trump took the unprecedented action of removing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook from her position on the Fed's board of directors.
A stronger yen typically weighs on exporters' shares by reducing the value of overseas earnings when converted back into Japanese currency.
Toyota Motor and Honda Motor slipped 1.41% and 1.71%, respectively.
Uniqlo brand owner Fast Retailing lost 1.44% and technology investor SoftBank Group fell 0.91%.
Chip-related heavyweights Advantest and Tokyo Electron gave up early losses to end 0.23% and 0.1% higher, respectively.
Investors, who were late on catching up with the Nikkei's latest rally, seemed to have been buying stocks on dips, which is limiting the declines, Yasuda said.
All but one of the Tokyo Stock Exchange's 33 industry sub-indexes fell, with the drugmakers losing 2.42% to become the worst performer.
Source Name : Economic Times