Mixed on Asian Exchanges

It was both up and down on the leading Asian stock exchanges in early Wednesday trading.

By lunchtime, Tokyo's important Nikkei 225 had fallen by 0.3 percent, while the broader Topix index was up 0.1 percent.

The composite indexes in Shanghai and Shenzhen were both up 0.2 and 0.6 percent, respectively. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index was hovering around zero, while South Korea's Kospi was up 0.7 percent.