Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Monday, despite a strong week on Wall Street as Chinese trading resumed after a holiday. The Shanghai Composite rose as it came back from a week-long holiday and even as the Caixin services PMI dipped to 50.6 in September, missing the 53.1 level expected and down from 52.7 in August. Among the other Asian markets, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore are in negative territory. Bucking the trend, Indonesia is higher. The Japanese market is closed for the Health and Sports Day holiday, while the markets in South Korea and Taiwan are closed for Hangeul Day and National Day, respectively.
Hang Seng declined 85.49 points or 0.3% to 28,372.55, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI dropped 0.68 points or 0.04% to 1,763.32, and Straits Times was down by 2.87 points or 0.09% to 3,288.42.
On the flip side, Jakarta Composite added 6.4 points or 0.11% to 5,911.77, and Shanghai Composite was up by 41.57 points or 1.24% to 3,390.51.