Stocks were bruised by an early afternoon Bloomberg News report that said the United States could maintain tariffs on more than US$300 billion in Chinese goods past November 2020.

The report came a day before US and Chinese representatives are set to sign a partial trade deal in which the Washington agreed not to impose additional tariffs and to reduce tariffs on about US$120 billion of goods.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 0.1 per cent at 28,939.67. The broad-based S&P 500 dipped 0.2 per cent to 3,283.15, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also shed 0.2 per cent to 9,251.33. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq had finished at all-time highs on Monday, the latest records in a run boosted by improved US-China trade relations, central bank easing and solid US economic data. Some investors have been expecting a pullback following the surge in recent weeks that have left the market in what analysts have called an "overbought" condition.

China has pledged to buy almost US$80 billion of additional manufactured goods from the United States over the next two years as part of a trade war truce, according to a source, though some US trade experts call it an unrealistic target.

US banking giants JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup posted strong profits on Tuesday, while Wells Fargo suffered another earnings stumble and signaled cost-cutting is ahead.

Wall Street stocks finished a choppy session mostly lower Tuesday as earnings season opened with mixed banking results ahead of a US-China trade agreement.

OUE on Tuesday said it has pared its stake in associated company and Hong Kong-listed real estate developer Gemdale Properties and Investment Corporation from 27.8 per cent to 23.8 per cent, after selling about 635.5 million shares of par value HK$0.10 each at HK$0.91 apiece.

Ailing offshore services provider Emas Offshore on Tuesday said that the Court has granted the judicial managers' (JMs) extension application for the validity of the judicial management order to be lengthened by six months from Apr 20, 2020 until Oct 20.

Miyoshi on Tuesday posted a net loss of S$314,000 for its first quarter ended Nov 30, compared to a net profit of S$4.3 million a year ago.

Aerospace component maker JEP Holdings on Tuesday said its wholly-owned unit, JEP Industrades, has been served a writ of summons and a statement of claim by Korea-domiciled plaintiff, YG-1 Co, in the High Court of Singapore.

Catalist-listed coal-mining firm BlackGold Natural Resources on Tuesday said its "unusual price and volume movements" might have been due to the fact that the company is actively exploring potential corporate fundraising exercises to improve its operations capability.

Source: SGX Masnet, The Business Times, Bloomberg, Channel NewsAsia, Reuters, PSR