It was mostly negative figures for leading indexes on Asian stock exchanges in Friday's initial trading.
Approaching lunch, the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Nikkei 225 index was hovering around zero, while the broader Topix index was up 0.3 per cent.
In China, the composite indexes in Shanghai and Shenzhen were down 0.2 per cent and 0.4 per cent, respectively. In Hong Kong, the decline was sharp, with the Hang Seng index down 1.5 per cent.
