Asia-Pacific markets mostly fall as Nasdaq reaches new highs; South Korea inflation in focus

Asia-Pacific markets mostly fell on Tuesday, despite gains on Wall Street that saw the Nasdaq Composite reached a new record on the strength of tech stocks.

The index was led by gains in Microsoft, Apple and chipmaker Nvidia. It advanced 0.83% to end at 17,879.3.

Traders in Asia are assessing South Korea’s inflation numbers which came in at 2.4% for June, missing expectations by economists polled by Reuters who predicted a inflation rate of 2.7%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.64% while the broad-based Topix was up 1.05%.

The Japanese yen weakened to a fresh 38-year low against the greenback, reaching as low as 161.67.

South Korea’s Kospi was 0.68% lower and the small-cap Kosdaq was 1.44% lower after the inflation data was released.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.6%. Mainland China’s CSI 300 was down 0.15%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.15%.

Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 recorded gains, rising 0.13% and 0.27% respectively.

—CNBC’s Brian Evans and Samantha Subin contributed to this report.