Investing.com - Shares in Shanghai gained on Monday, while Sydney fell slightly in thin regional trade with financial markets in Japan shut for a holiday.
The Shanghai Composite rose 0.56%, while the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.22%.
In China, house prices data for August rose 9.2%, outpacing the increase of 7.9% seen in the previous month year-on-year.
Investors are looking to policy meetings from the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan with data in the U.S. last week showing the consumer price index rose 0.2% in August, compared to expectations for a 0.1% gain. Year-over-year, consumer prices increased 1.1%, helping support the case for a Fed rate hike later this year.
Investors are currently pricing in just a 12% chance of a rate hike at the Fed's September 20-21 meeting, according to Investing.com's Fed Rate Monitor Tool. Elsewhere, the yen's losses remained limited amid fading expectations of drastic easing steps from the Bank of Japan, which, like the Fed, also meets on September 20-21. Sources familiar with the BoJ's thinking said the central bank will consider making negative interest rates the focus of its future easing by shifting its prime policy target to interest rates from base money.
Last week, U.S. stocks were lower after the close on Friday, as losses in the Oil & Gas, Financials and Industrials sectors led shares lower.
At the close in NYSE, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.49%, while the S&P 500 index declined 0.38%, and the NASDAQ Composite index fell 0.10%.