It was down in Monday's opening trade on the Hong Kong stock exchange, the Hang Seng index was down 0.6 percent just before lunch.
The stock exchanges in Japan, China, and South Korea are closed for a public holiday.
Behind the decline in the former crown colony lies disappointment over statistics that came over the weekend regarding the development in the Chinese economy. Figures for industrial production, investments, and consumption landed below expectations. This counteracts the positive effects that last week's predicted interest rate cut from the American central bank, the Fed, has given.
