Asian Stock Markets Show Mixed Performance

Asia's leading exchanges started the trading week with both sour and sweet notes. At lunchtime on Monday, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was up 0.7 percent – and so were Shanghai's and Shenzhen's composite indexes, which had risen by 0.3 and 0.2 percent, respectively.

In Tokyo, however, the mood was gloomier. The key Nikkei 225 was down 0.7 percent and the broader Topix index had fallen 0.4 percent.