Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Monday as investors continued to react to Britain's surprise decision leave the European Union. While the so-called Brexit was discussed intensely across the world in the run up to the poll, the actual decision by Britain to leave came as a surprise. Global markets were caught off guard and plummeted Friday. Meanwhile, stocks in Japan rebounded after getting slammed by Britain’s decision last week. Chinese shares advanced after the central bank weakened its fixing for the yuan by the most since August. Among the other Asian markets, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan are lower.
Hang Seng dipped 148.25 points or 0.73% to 20,110.88, Straits Times contracted 8.55 points or 0.31% to 2,726.84, KOSPI Index dropped 6.49 points or 0.34% to 1,918.75, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 7.43 points or 0.45% to 1,626.62, Taiwan Weighted declined 29.15 points or 0.34% to 8,447.84, and Jakarta Composite was down by 17.81 points or 0.37% to 4,816.76.
On the flip side, Nikkei 225 added 249.31 points or 1.67% to 15,201.33, and Shanghai Composite was up by 24.47 points or 0.86% to 2,878.76.