Elsewhere, Indian shares were marginally higher, Singapore’s Straits Times index was up 0.1% and the Taiwan Weighted rose 0.2% while Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite index was declining 0.8% and Malaysia’s KLSE Composite was down 0.7%.
Advertisement
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japan’s former phone monopoly, climbed 1.1 percent after saying it plans to buy back as much as 350 billion yen ($3.2 billion) of its shares from the government, its largest stake holder.
KEEPING SCORE: In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 0.6 percent at 6,105 while the CAC-40 in France fell 1 percent to 4,278. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 1 percent to 16,583.04 in the morning. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.2%, Australian stocks advanced 0.6% and South Korea’s Kospi was little changed.
It held some of its early gains despite a denial by Japan’s top government spokesman on Monday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made a decision to postpone the tax hike. “It is utterly groundless”, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference, repeating that the government would increase the levy as planned unless there was a financial crisis on the scale of the Lehman Brothers collapse or a major natural disaster.
European stocks edged lower after weak industrial data from China, but trading volumes were thin due to a bank holiday in several countries.
CHINESE WEAKNESS: Government data on April factory output were weaker than expected, fueling concern a possible economic rebound supported by government stimulus might be faltering. “We were teed up for a pretty weak earnings season anyway, and it certainly fulfilled that expectation”, said Lee Wild, an equity strategist at stockbroker Interactive Investor.
The dollar gained for a third day, while Japanese shares rose.
Aluminium was stuck near a one-month low and copper was in close reach of a two-and-a-half-month low.
China stocks rose slightly on Monday after the securities regulator denied media reports it was cracking down on fundraising and mergers and acquisitions in certain sectors, helping to offset disappointing April economic data.
A stronger greenback tends to weigh on non-U.S. buyers of dollar-denominated commodities. Early in the Asian session, the greenback initially fell versus the yen to touch a low of 108.46 yen, retreating from two-week highs of 109.57 set on Friday, when the dollar gained a lift from upbeat USA data.
Risk sentiment was subdued after Wall Street reversed early momentum to close lower Friday as a slump in consumer-focused companies outweighed a strong monthly report on retail sales. The euro was flat at US$1.1314 after slipping to a two-week low of US$1.1283 on Friday.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite closed 23.75 points or 0.84% higher at 2.850.86 after declining for four consecutive weeks.
Advertisement
In commodities, Brent crude oil rose 1.8% to $48.70 a barrel, despite a stronger dollar.
