Asian Stock Markets Decline with Tokyo and Hong Kong Leading Losses

There were gloomy faces on the leading Asian stock exchanges after a few hours of trading on Tuesday. At lunchtime, both Tokyo's Nikkei 225 and the Topix index were down 0.9 and 1 percent, respectively.

Also in China, the leading indices had fallen back – although to a slightly lower degree. The Shanghai composite index was down 0.1 percent, while the Shenzhen composite index had fallen by 0.4 percent.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng pointed down with 1 percent.