Asia markets mixed as China cuts key lending rates

Hong Kong stocks saw a further sell-off in Tuesday's afternoon session, led by health-care and technology stocks.

Shares of EC Healthcare plunged by more than 8% on weak earnings estimates, marking their lowest point since June 2.

Alibaba group companies also fell sharply, with Alibaba Health Information Technology dropping 3% and Alibaba Group Holdings shedding nearly 2% following the announcement of its executive reshuffle.

Health-care stocks fell 8%, and technology stocks shed 2%, while property and energy stocks fell about 1.9%.

— Jihye Lee

Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group fell further and traded 1.9% lower after it announced that co-founder Eddie Wu will succeed Daniel Zhang as chief executive of Alibaba Group.

Wu is currently chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group, and current executive vice chairman Joesph Tsai will take Zhang's place as the group's chairman.

Zhang will continue to lead the Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group as chairman and chief executive after this change, which the company said will take effect Sept. 10.

— Lim Hui Jie, Clement Tan

Port congestion has mostly reverted to normal and disruption related to the Covid consumption boom "is certainly behind us," said Parash Jain, HSBC's head of transport research in Asia-Pacific.

"What we are witnessing now is a massive destocking going on in the U.S.," Jain told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Tuesday.

U.S. port import data is down about 20% year-on-year but, Jain said, it is "still holding up better" than in 2019. Normalization is happening in air cargo as well, he added.

Overall cargo volume is back to pre-Covid trends, Jain said.

— Audrey Wan

The Reserve Bank of Australia said it made the decision to raise its benchmark interest rate to 4.1% after seeing that inflation data had "shifted to the upside" and that domestic inflation will take longer to return to its target.

In minutes released for the RBA's June meeting, the central bank revealed that members were deliberating between raising rates or holding it to assess additional data.

However, the case for raising rates won out, with the argument being that inflation was already projected to be above target for a number of years and was expected to take somewhat longer to return to target in Australia than in some other countries.

The RBA cited the rise in Australia's inflation rate in April, and that the decline in goods inflation was less than observed in other countries.

"Services price inflation had not yet shown signs of moderating and the evidence from abroad suggested that it may prove to be persistent," the minutes add.

— Lim Hui Jie

Shares of mainland Chinese developers slid over 3% after China cut its five-year loan prime rates less than some economists expected.

Reuters said that according to a survey it conducted before the announcement, 16 of the 32 analysts polled expected a deeper cut of at least 15 basis points to the five-year loan prime rate.

The five-year LPR, which serves as mortgage reference rate, was cut by 10 basis points to 4.2%.

Real estate stocks on the Hang Seng index led losses, with the the Hang Seng Mainland Properties Index falling more than 3.5%.

Property developer Country Garden Holdings was the largest loser on the HSI and tumbled 5.65%, while property investment firm Longfor Group slid 4.94%.

— Lim Hui Jie

Port congestion has mostly reverted to normal and disruption related to the Covid consumption boom "is certainly behind us," said Parash Jain, HSBC's head of transport research in Asia-Pacific.

"What we are witnessing now is a massive destocking going on in the U.S.," Jain told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Tuesday.

U.S. port import data is down about 20% year-on-year but, Jain said, it is "still holding up better" than in 2019. Normalization is happening in air cargo as well, he added.

Overall cargo volume is back to pre-Covid trends, Jain said.

— Audrey Wan

China has cut its key one-year and five-year loan prime rates by 10 basis points each, the first cut since August.

The one-year LPR stands at 3.55%, down from 3.65%, while the five-year LPR was reduced to 4.20% from 4.30%. The moves mirror cuts that China made last week to its short-term and medium-term loan rates.

After the announcement, the offshore yuan weakened 0.13% to trade at 7.172 against the greenback.

— Lim Hui Jie

Japanese trading houses jumped at the open on Tuesday after Berkshire Hathaway raised its stake in five Japanese trading firms to average more than 8.5%.

Mitsui jumped 4.55%, Marubeni gained 3.44%, and Mitsubishi rose by nearly 4% while Itochu and Sumitomo rose nearly 3% each.

Japan's top five trading houses saw renewed momentum thanks to Warren Buffett, bucking the trend as Japanese equities continued to drop a second day.

The firm noted that the aggregate value of these interests surpasses that of Berkshire-held stock in any country outside of the U.S., the firm said.

— Jihye Lee, Elliot Smith, Ruxandra Iordache

The People's Bank of China is expected to deliver rate cuts to its 1-year and 5-year loan prime rates later today.

Economists polled by Reuters forecast a 10 basis point cut to its 1-year loan prime rate and a 15 basis point cut to the 5-year loan prime rate, according to Factset.

China last delivered cuts to its LPRs in August 2022. Investors will eye today's decision closely after the central bank lowered its medium term lending facility and its seven-day reverse repurchase rate.

— Jihye Lee

A global auto giant may be the next company to sign a deal with Tesla to use its supercharger stations, according to RBC analyst Tom Narayan.

If the agreement comes to pass, the deal will be in the wake of similar partnerships Tesla has agreed with Ford and General Motors.

Investors have rewarded all parties to the deal in the past. The day following the agreement, Tesla and Ford's shares popped by 4.7% and 6.2%, respectively. Both automakers' stock prices have rallied by more than 25% since.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Ganesh Rao

Outperforming portfolio manager Jordan Cvetanovski has looked for certain attributes in the companies he picked in the past nearly 20 years.

And the results have proven to be consistent throughout the global financial crisis, the era of zero interest rates — and now, high interest rates.

One fund that Cvetanovski of Pella Funds Management managed beat its benchmark by a whopping 27% in a four-year period.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Weizhen Tan

The three major averages hit notable milestones with last week's wins, even though Friday ended on a down beat.

While the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite ended Friday's session in the red, the three indexes were up for the week.

The S&P 500 leapt 2.6% for the week, its strongest weekly performance since March and the fifth positive week in a row — a first since it ended a streak of the same length in November 2021. The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 3.25% on the week, its best since March and the eighth positive week in a row for the first time since it ended a 10-week streak in March 2019.

The Dow also cruised to a modest weekly win, adding 1.25% and notching its third positive week in a row since April of this year.

—Darla Mercado, Chris Hayes

Stock futures ticked down Monday as investors gear up for a shortened trading week.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 65 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures traded 0.2% lower while Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.15%.

Last week saw the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite post their best weekly performances since March.

— Brian Evans