The leading Asian stock exchanges began Monday trading by moving in different directions.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange ended last week with clear increases, but by lunchtime on Monday, both the important Nikkei 225 index and the broader Topix index were fluctuating around zero after the initial trading.
More optimistic tones were heard from Hong Kong's Hang Seng index, which was up 1.2 percent.
Also, the composite indexes in Shanghai and Shenzhen were up, with increases of 0.5 and 0.2 percent, respectively.
