Japan's Nikkei share average fell on Tuesday for the fourth straight session, reversing the morning's gains after weaker-than-expected Chinese imports stirred concerns about slowing demand in the world's second largest economy.
The Nikkei closed down 0.4 percent at 8,857.73, as investor sentiment remained caught between recent gloomy data and the vague hopes that it will prompt more easing by central banks.
The Nikkei has now dropped 1.8 percent from a two-month high of 9,136.02 hit on July 4, following a month-long rally. It also landed on a key trend-line that connects the intraday lows of June 4 and June 26-27 around 8,856, which some players interpret as a sign that its bull run since early June is over.
"The market is likely to be pretty directionless through July. There's no real incentives for another sell-off, but the recent rally left it quite overheated according to technical indicators," said Hisao Matsuura, vice president of equity strategy at Nomura Securities.
After rising as much as 0.8 percent in the morning, the benchmark index lost gains ain data showing China's imports rose 6.3 percent from a year ago in June, about half of what economists had expected.
The broader Topix index shed 0.7 percent to 758.60.
Oil and coal finally turned around more than six months of underperformance to become the best performing subindex with a gain of 1.7 percent. The sector's sharp climb came after its ratio against the Topix hit a two-year low on Monday.
But consumer electronics companies lagged, with Sharp Corp shedding 4.2 percent to a fresh 28-year low after announcing an out of court settlement with Dell Inc and two other companies over its TFT digital business.
Sony Corp fell 2.5 percent, while Panasonic Corp dropped 1.3 percent after failing to impress with a new business plan designed to shake up the sprawling electronics maker, announced on Monday.
Nikon Corp was knocked down 7 percent after Intel Corp said it would buy a 15 percent stake in Nikon competitor ASML, which etches circuits onto silicon wafers and is experimenting with extreme ultraviolet tech (EUV), an area where the Japanese camera maker has made little progress.