It was mostly gloomy on Asia's leading stock exchanges in early Thursday trading.
In Tokyo, both the Nikkei 225 and the broader Topix index were down 1.4 percent at lunchtime.
Shanghai's composite index had fallen 0.3 percent, while Shenzhen's composite index had risen around 0.4.
Even in Hong Kong, it looked marginally bright as the Hang Seng index rose 0.1 percent.
