It was downhill for leading stock market indices in Monday's initial trading on Monday.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index was down 1.6 percent after a few hours of trading, while the Topix index was down 1.2 percent.
In China, the movements were barely noticeable, with the composite index in Shanghai and Shenzhen down 0.2 and 0.1 percent, respectively.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong showed a minus 0.3 percent.
Only South Korea's Kospi index went against the trend and was up, nosing around plus 2 percent.
