By Kenan Machado 

Asian stocks were largely lower Tuesday, though Hong Kong equities rebounded from early weakness following the Lunar New Year holiday.

The Hang Seng Index ended morning trading up 0.1%, after earlier dropping as much as 1.3% when big financial stocks, particularly China-based companies, experienced weakness. Index heavyweights Tencent and HSBC each rose nearly 1%.

While stock trading might have only resumed Tuesday in Hong Kong's market after the holiday, other Asian equities saw broad declines following wide gains Monday.

The drop came as European stocks pulled back overnight and S&P 500 futures were recently down 0.2% ahead of Tuesday's start to a holiday-shortened week in the U.S.

With Chinese markets closed until Thursday for the holiday, investors should be cautioned against reading too much into recent price action due to "very, very thin" volumes, said Andrew Bresler, deputy head of sales trading Asia Pacific at Saxo Capital Markets.

The Nikkei Stock Average--the Asia-Pacific region's best performer Monday with its jump of 2%--fared the worst Tuesday in trading down 0.9% in afternoon action. Electronics and financial stocks were weak.

The selling came even as the yen widely eased slightly versus other currencies. Against the dollar, it was around Yen106.75 versus Yen106.49 at Monday's Tokyo stock-market close.

In South Korea, the Kospi index slid 0.7% by midday. Samsung Electronics fell 1.5%, extending Monday's 1.3% decline. Shares jumped 9.6% last week, the most in 2 1/2 years.

Other major regional stock benchmarks were down no more than 0.3% Tuesday. Markets in Taiwan will reopen Wednesday after a week-long holiday break.

While earnings season continues especially in places such as Australia, investors are already looking beyond the latest, generally strong, updates in the wake of the cross-market uncertainty that has developed this month, said Paul Kitney, chief strategist for Asia-Pacific stocks at Daiwa Capital Markets in Hong Kong.

Away from equities, Brent oil futures eased 0.4% in Asian trading after Monday's 1.3% gain. And bitcoin has risen to about $11,400, according to CoinDesk, as it continued to rebound from early February's low of $5,947.

Write to Kenan Machado at kenan.machado@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 19, 2018 23:32 ET (04:32 GMT)