Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Monday, taking cues from the U.S. markets last week as data pointed to economies in the region still struggling to re-ignite growth and attention switched to Europe and more talks with Greece. Further, the Japanese market is lower, following a downward revision to Japan's GDP growth. Exporters were lower despite a weaker yen. Among other markets in the Asia-Pacific region, Shanghai, Indonesia and Malaysia are down more than 1 percent each, while South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan are trading with modest losses.
Nikkei 225 tumbled 156.39 points or 0.82% to 18,814.61, Hang Seng declined 194.46 points or 0.80% to 23,969.54, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI dipped 17.96 points or 0.99% to 1,789.00, Straits Times contracted 17.86 points or 0.52% to 3,399.65, Taiwan Weighted crumbled 65.27 points or 0.68% to 9,580.50, Shanghai Composite slipped by 30.33 points or 0.94% to 3,210.86, KOSPI Index dropped 17.18 points or 0.85% to 1,995.76 and Jakarta Composite was down by 61.63 points or 1.12% to 5,453.16.