By Kenan Machado 

Asian shares started lower Tuesday as European equities retreated overnight.

After the early-month rout in global stock markets and last week's rebound, there is still uncertainty about longer-term liquidity flows, noted Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG Markets.

Japanese stocks--Monday's best performer with a 2% jump for the Nikkei Stock Average--were leading the losers early Tuesday as the Nikkei fell 1.1%. Electronics, insurers and regional-bank stocks were weak.

The market's pullback came even though the yen eased, with the dollar rising to Yen106.70 from Yen106.55 early Tuesday and Yen106.49 at Monday's Tokyo stock-market close.

In South Korea, the Kospi index was down 0.7% as Samsung Electronics fell 1.7%, extending its 1.3% loss on Monday.

Other regional stock benchmarks were down no more than 0.3%. Hong Kong equities began trading again after a four-day Lunar New Year holiday. Stock markets in Taiwan and China remain closed for the holidays; the Taiwanese market will reopen Wednesday and Chinese markets on Thursday.

S&P 500 futures were recently down 0.3%, ahead of the start of a holiday-shortened week in the U.S.

Brent oil futures eased 0.4% in Asian trading after Monday's 1.3% gain. Bitcoin has risen to $11,500, 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 21:18 ET (02:18 GMT)

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