Gloomy on Asian Markets

There were minus signs and no change for leading indices on Asian stock exchanges in Thursday's initial trading.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index was down 0.6 per cent and the broader Topix down 0.7 per cent.

In China, the composite indices in Shanghai and Shenzhen were just above zero and down 0.7 per cent, respectively. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index was around zero.