London equities markets mixed

Most Asia-Pacific equities markets saw gains on Monday. The Nikkei 225 was fractionally higher, adding 5.49 points to 17,289.3, while the Topix index gained 1.4 percent to 1,705.71. The Mothers market of small and mid-cap stocks was 1.63 percent higher to 852.93. Elsewhere in the region the Sensex was up 0.17 percent to 15,260.91, while in Australia the Sydney Ordinaries gained 0.31 percent to 6,146.5 and the S&P/ASX200 was 0.43 percent higher to 6,108.8. In Hong Kong the Hang Seng index added 0.75 percent to 22,739.9, while the Straits Times index was up 0.96 percent to 3,526.29. South Korea’s Kospi index gained 1.25 percent to 1,906.71. The Shanghai Composite, meanwhile, added 2.2 percent to 4,440.77. The major exception to the gains was in Taiwan, where the Taiex index dropped 0.98 percent to 9,072.57.

The European markets were mixed on the session. The Eurofirst 300 dropped 0.06 percent to 1,519.09, while the Paris CAC-40 added 0.04 percent to 5,646.36 and the Dax was up 0.6 percent to 7,456.31 in Frankfurt. In Madrid, the IBEX was 0.54 percent lower to 14,508.3. London’s markets were mixed as well. The FTSE 100 was 0.15 percent lower to 6,206.1, while the FTSE 250 gained 0.79 percent to 11,071.7.

Wall Street was higher in early afternoon trade. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 57.7 points to 13,324.6, while the Nasdaq Composite had added 9.8 points to 2,572 and the S&P 500 was 6.2 points higher to 1,465.

Crude oil prices were lower on the day, but metals prices trended upward as the US dollar weakened.

The Japanese yen did not seem to be affected by the results of Sunday’s election in Japan, in which the ruling Liberal Democratic party lost control of the upper house of the Diet, Japan’s parliament.

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