Asia stock markets: BOJ meeting, Japan unemployment

Asia-Pacific markets fell across the region on Tuesday as the Bank of Japan kicks off its two-day monetary policy meeting.

When the meeting concludes Wednesday, the BOJ is expected to raise its benchmark interest rate and trim its Japanese government bond purchases. Economists polled by Reuters expect the BOJ to increase its benchmark interest rate to 0.1%, up from the current range of 0% to 0.1%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 slid 0.57%, while the broad based Topix was down 0.56%. Japan’s unemployment rate came in slightly lower than expected in July, at 2.5% compared to the 2.6% forecast by a Reuters poll of economists.

South Korea’s Kospi was down 0.73%, while the small-cap Kosdaq saw a smaller loss of 0.4%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.7%.

Hong Kong Hang Seng index futures were at 17,212, lower than the HSI’s last close of 17,238,34.

Overnight in the U.S., the three major indexes ended mixed, with the S&P 500 marginally higher as Wall Street geared up for a busy week of corporate earnings and looked ahead to a key policy announcement from the U.S. central bank.

Economists don’t expect the Fed to make any changes to the federal funds rate during this meeting, but traders will look for clues on whether the central bank will cut rates in September.

The broad market index gained 0.08%, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.07%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.12%.

—CNBC’s Pia Singh and Jesse Pound contributed to this report.