Asian stocks open the week with mixed performance

Asian stocks opened the first session of the week on mixed performance, with the Japanese stock indices being mixed, while the Australian, New Zealand stocks as well as South Korea's Kospi index rising, while the Chinese stock indices and the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index fell on Monday.

This follows the release of the Japanese first-quarter growth data which exceeded expectations,

 and the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, who scores a surprise election victory in the recent elections, while the trade war between Washington and Beijing continues to weigh on risk appetite, especially after the Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China, Wang Yi, told his US counterpart, Mike Pompeo, that although there is still a chance to reach an agreement, China has to protect its interests.

On Wednesday, US President, Donald Trump, signed an executive order that required putting Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and 70 affiliates on a trading blacklist "Entity List", in a move that bans the telecom giant from buying parts and components from U.S. companies without U.S. government approval. This was followed by the suspension of business between Alphabet Inc’s Google and Huawei, that includes the transfer of hardware, software and technical services except those publicly available via open source licensing.

In terms of trading, the Japanese stock indices witnessed a mixed performance during today's trading session, with Topix index falling by 0.11% to lose 1.70 points, down to the level of 1,552.55, while Nikkei 225 rose by 0.23%, gaining 48.39 points, up to 21,298.48 level.

On the other hand, China's CSI 300 fell 1.32% (48.30 points) to reach 3,600.46. With the Shanghai Composite Index also falling 1.24% (35.83 points) to reach the level of 2,846.47.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.73% (204.58 points) to 27,741.80, while South Korea's Kospi rose 0.51% (10.55 points) up to 2,066.35.

To the NZX 50 index of New Zealand stocks, which rose by 0.25 (25.87 points) to reach 10,206.67. While the S&P/ASX 200 index of Australian stocks also rose by 1.47% (93.30 points) to 6,458.60.