ASIA MARKETS: Shanghai Extends Fall, Mumbai Snaps Five-day Rally

Asian markets mostly declined Tuesday, with steelmakers such as Nippon Steel Corp. and Posco dropping on sliding commodity prices to outweigh gains in airline and automobile stocks such as Cathay Pacific Airways and Honda Motor Co.

The region was marked by choppy trading, which saw most indexes swerve between positive and negative territories.

Shanghai-listed stocks turned volatile, not much enthused by data, which showed consumer price index-based inflation for July rose at a slower-than- expected rate of 6.3% from the year-earlier month, in contrast to a surge in producer prices released Monday.

"The [CPI inflation] number by itself is marginally positive, but it's not completely safe in terms of China's inflation, because the producer price index is definitely picking up," said Peter Pak, vice president at BOCI Research in Hong Kong. "It may have some effect [on consumer prices] several months later."

He was referring to China's PPI data released Monday, which showed wholesale inflation accelerated at a decade-high rate of 10% in July from the same month a year-ago.

The Shanghai Composite, which fell more than 9% in the two previous sessions, ended 0.5% lower at 2,475.20, after dropping as low as 2,430.85 earlier in the day. The benchmark index, which nearly doubled last year, has given up all its gains from 2007 and then some in 2008, tallying losses of more than 53% in the year to date.