Ongoing gloom on Asia's stock exchanges

The sour mines on the leading Asian stock exchanges are holding on – albeit to a small extent. Japan's Nikkei 225 and Topix index were both down around 1 percent and 0.7 percent respectively at lunchtime on Friday.

Shanghai's composite index had fallen by 0.4 percent while Shenzhen's equivalent was at minus 0.8 percent.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index had fallen by 0.4 percent.