Asian Markets Mostly Higher

(RTTNews) - Asian stock markets are trading mostly higher on Monday after a long holiday weekend, with markets in Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand shut due to the Easter holiday, following the mixed cues from Wall Street on Thursday, amid progress in tariff discussions between the Trump administration and other major economies. However, the lack of direct trade negotiations between the US and China continued to weigh on market sentiment.

The Australian stock market is closed for Easter Monday on Monday. Australian stocks closed significantly higher on Thursday ahead of the holiday on Friday.

In the currency market, the Aussie dollar is trading at $0.639 on Monday.

The Japanese stock market is trading sharply lower on Monday, reversing the gains in the previous session, following the mixed cues from Wall Street on Thursday, with the Nikkei 225 falling to be a tad above 34,300 level, with weakness across most sectors led by exporters and financial stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index closed the morning session at 34,300.35, down 429.93 points or 1.24 percent, after hitting a low of 34,297.76 earlier. Japanese shares ended significantly higher on Friday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing almost 1 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is also declining almost 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is edging down 0.4 percent and Toyota is losing more than 1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is edging down 0.2 percent, while Screen Holdings and Tokyo Electron are edging up 0.1 to 0.2 percent each.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is losing more than 1 percent, Mizuho Financial is down more than 2 percent and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is declining almost 2 percent.

The major exporters are lower. Panasonic and Sony are losing almost 1 percent each, while Canon is down 1.5 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is declining more than 1 percent.

Among the other major losers, Sumitomo Pharma is losing more than 5 percent, Suzuki Motor is declining more than 3 percent and BANDAI NAMCO is down almost 3 percent.

Conversely, there are no other major gainers

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 141 yen-range on Monday.

Elsewhere in Asia, Singapore is up 1.3 percent, while China, South Korea and Indonesia are higher by between 0.8 and 1.5 percent each. Malaysia and Taiwan are down 0.1 and 0.8 percent, respectively. New Zealand and Hong Kong are closed for Easter holiday.

On Wall Street, stocks showed a lack of direction over the course of the trading day on Thursday following the sell-off seen in the previous session. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before eventually closing narrowly mixed.

While the Nasdaq edged down 20.71 points or 0.1 percent to 16,286.45, the S&P 500 inched up 7.00 points or 0.1 percent to 5,282.70. The narrower Dow showed a more significant move to the downside, tumbling 527.16 points or 1.3 percent to 39,142.23.

Meanwhile, most European stocks moved to the downside on the day. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index ended the day nearly unchanged, the German DAX Index fell by 0.5 percent and the French CAC 40 Index slid by 0.6 percent.

Crude oil prices moved lower on Monday amid easing concerns about sanctions on Iranian oil exports after progress in nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery slipped $1.09 or 1.7 percent to $63.60 a barrel.