Asian Indices down on a negative turn with Nikkei 225 and ASX 200 Down

After a series of positive trading sessions on Wall Street, Europe and Asia since last week, Asian stocks now dipped with Nikkei falling 1.13%. Most other indices in the region were flat to slightly down with Australia’s ASX 200 shedding 0.1% after an afternoon dip.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed roughly flat after an incremental 0.04% slide. China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen Composite indices were also flat, falling slightly to either side of the breakeven line, with a respective gain of 0.03% and loss of 0.06%.

In Seoul, South Korea’s KOSPI lost 0.2%, andSingapore’s STI index is down 1.26%.

With the yen gaining against the dollar, up 0.3%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 benchmark average settled into a downward trend almost immediately, despite opening very slightly up after Wall Street recorded further gains on Monday. Losses sharply accelerated immediately after the session’s lunch break and then again at the end of the day to lock in the fall of over 1%.

Toshiba was back in the news and among the day’s heaviest fallers as the company missed the scheduled release of its quarterly results in the afternoon.Despite looking at raising capital by the sale of stakes in its other units, such as its memory chips business, there are fears that this wouldn’t be enough to cover the estimated $7 billion in write downs. Dropping down would make attracting additional investment a much more difficult task. Toshiba closed the session with a loss of almost 10%, down 9.2%.

In Australia, the ASX 200 spent most of the day in positive territory, diverging from most of the other indices trading over the Asian session, but eventually surrendered to a 0.1% loss after a late drop. The big resources companies closed mixed with Rio Tinto managing to hold onto gains to close 0.28% up, Fortescue Metals was flat and BHP Billiton lost 0.91%.