Hong Kong's stock market ended lower on Monday with the benchmark Hang Seng Index down 0.37 percent to close at 25,176.85 points.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index dipped 0.06 percent to end at 9,033.68 points, while the Hang Seng Tech Index rose 0.65 percent to close at 5,579.18 points.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock index, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average, surged 336.00 points or 0.77 percent to 43,714.31 points on Monday.
Timothy Pope, a market analyst, recapped stock markets' performance of Hong Kong and Japan.
"Hong Kong's Hang Seng was trading pretty flat this afternoon. For most of the afternoon, it barely moved at all. [It] ended the day a little shy of 0.4 percent [lower]. Real estate and energy stocks were acting like a ball and chain on the market this afternoon. They were down pretty heavily and offset gains among consumer shares. Great Wall Motor stocks were doing pretty well. They were among the better performers on the market today. The automaker added more than 10 percent after opening a new factory in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo. The new factory apparently can churn out 50,000 vehicles a year that are meant for the Latin American market. And they had the Brazilian President Lula speaking at the opening too. So, that found favor with investors. On the other end of things, Standard Chartered Bank stocks were down extensively this session. They shed 5.3 percent in Hong Kong and were down even more strongly in London last week," he said.
"Over in Japan, we saw, as you said, the Nikkei 225 continuing to ride high. It added about 0.8 percent to close at 43,714 points. It's second session in a row closing at a record high. A weaker yen is continuing to help Tokyo's exporter stocks. We saw Honda, the carmaker, adding around 1.5 percent today, as did the chip testing tech company Advantest. They of course supply a lot of the U.S. chip giants like Nvidia. There was some profit taking among Japanese banking stocks though. They made strong gains on Friday, you remember, after we had some quite good economic data out of Japan that really stoked the case for some potential interest rate hikes from the BOJ (Bank of Japan) in the not too distant future. But Japanese investors were also taking a bit of a lead from Wall Street. The Dow Jones did very well on Friday, hitting its own intra-day record high," he added.
Analyst highlights mixed performances in Asian stock markets on Monday
