By V. Phani Kumar, Rosalind Mathieson & Wei-Zhe Tan HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Most Asian share markets ended slightly lower Tuesday despite a strong performance on Wall Street and broad gains for resource stocks as fatigue set in after recent gains. Concerns about capital-raising pulled Japanese banks lower, while Chinese financial stocks dragged on the Hong Kong market. Japan's Nikkei 225 Average finished 0.6% lower, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.5%, South Korea's Kospi lost 0.4%, New Zealand's NZX 50 declined 1.3%, Taiwan's Taiex closed 0.8% lower and India's Sensex slid 0.5% in afternoon trading. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index ran into resistance at the psychologically-important 23,000-point level that it touched in the opening minutes, before retreating. The index closed 0.1% lower, while the China's Shanghai Composite edged 0.2% higher. The continued decline in the U.S. dollar - and consequent strength in Asia-Pacific domestic currencies - was causing some concern for exporter-related stocks. "Most exporters may underperform the market," said Yukio Takahashi, a market analyst at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo. But "as long as U.S. interest rates remain at current low levels, liquidity and dollar selling will continue to support commodity markets." In Tokyo, shares of Mizuho Financial Group (MFG 3.91, -0.06, -1.51%) (JP:8411 172.00, -7.00, -3.91%) gave up 1.2%, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFJ.Y 3.43, -0.10, -2.83%) (JP:8316 3,050, -190.00, -5.86%) gave up 0.7% and Shinsei Bank (SKLK.Y 2.53, -0.02, -0.78%) (JP:8303 114.00, -3.00, -2.56%) lost 2.6%, following reports that Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MTU 5.38, +0.19, +3.66%) (JP:8306 480.00, -28.00, -5.51%) was considering a one trillion yen ($11 billion) share issue. MUFG itself rose 1.5%, retracing some losses after sliding 5.5% Monday. Read story on capital-raising by Japanese firms. Many exporters also lost ground on the yen's strength against the U.S. dollar, with Nikon Corp. (NINO.Y 191.75, +0.75, +0.39%) (JP:7731 1,679, -15.00, -0.89%) falling 1.1% and Nissan Motor Co. (JP:7201 654.00, -7.00, -1.06%) (NSAN.Y 14.78, +0.23, +1.58%) losing 0.9%. Shares of Canon (CAJ 38.33, +0.34, +0.89%) (JP:7751 3,370, -50.00, -1.46%) rose 3%, however, on news it would buy Dutch printer maker Oce NV for 730 million euros ($1.1 billion) in cash, with the Japanese office machine maker aiming to grow amid shaky prospects for corporate spending. The broad region-wide fall came although all three major U.S. indexes rose to new closing highs on the year overnight, helped by energy and materials firms. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 15 points in screen trade recently. Several commodity-related shares in the region rose after metals gained Monday, after LME three-month copper hit 14-month highs in London, rising more than 5%. Spot gold also briefly touched a record high of $1,143.30 a troy ounce in electronic trade. BHP Billiton (BHP 76.11, +2.82, +3.85%) (AU:BHP 40.57, +0.40, +1.00%) gained 1% and Macarthur Coal (AU:MCC 10.18, +0.34, +3.46%) (MACD.Y 17.93, +0.24, +1.36%) jumped 3.5% in Sydney. Korea Zinc climbed 3.2% in Seoul, Sino Gold Mining (HK:1862 57.00, +0.60, +1.06%) gained 1.1% in Hong Kong and Sterlite Industries (SLT 19.05, +0.59, +3.20%) rose 0.3% in Mumbai trading. China Merchant Securities' performance on debut in Shanghai came in below expectations. The stock ended at 33.61 yuan compared with its IPO at 31 yuan. Analysts were expecting gains of 20% to 30% as the brokerage raised $1.62 billion, after attracting 1.04 trillion yuan in subscriptions.

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