Investing.com - Asian shares fell on Monday, taking a cue from Wall Street last week and negative futures ahead of trading today with Tokyo down sharply on concerns about the direction of dollar/yen
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell 2.52%. USD/JPY changed hands at 109.95, down 0.19%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 eased 1.54. Shares of ANZ were down 1.48%, Commonwealth Bank declined 1.15%, Westpac was down 1.45% and the National Australia Bank fell 1.42%.
In Greater China, the Shanghai Composite was down 0.18% and the Hang Seng index dropped 1.78%. China published its January Caixin services index which showed a level of 54.7, compared to 53.6 expected and 53.9 in December.
The UK is to release data on service sector activity. Later Monday, ECB head Mario Draghi is to testify on the central bank’s Annual Report for 2016 before the European Parliament.
Investors will also be looking to political wrangling in Washington over the country’s finances ahead of the Feb. 8 spending deadline and the debt ceiling issue. In what is set to be a relatively light week on the economic calendar, central bank meetings in the UK, Australia and New Zealand will also be in focus.
Last week, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 665.75 points to close at 25,520.96, capping off the index's sixth-largest points decline ever. The 30-stock index also fell below 26,000. Friday also marked the first time since June 2016 that the Dow fell at least 500 points.
The S&P 500 fell 2.1% and finished at 2,762.13, with energy as the worst-performing sector. The Nasdaq composite plunged 1.96% to 7,240.95 as a decline in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) offset a strong gain in Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) shares.