Asia: Nikkei tumbles in face of yen headwind

While Greater China's markets remained closed for a national holiday, Japan's Nikkei stumbled badly in the face of yen headwinds and weakening sentiment from European and US performance.

Much focus remained on Hong Kong, whose stock market re-opens on Friday, while mainland markets will wait until next week.

Beijing publicly came out in support of Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying for the first time, saying its was "very satisfied" with his handling of the “chaos” caused by pro-democracy campaigners, while China’s Foreign Minister has described the protests as “illegal”.

The protesters have said they will start occupying government buildings in the city if Leung refuses to step down by Thursday night.

Speaking to citizens via state-owned mouthpiece of The People’s Daily (TPD) the Chinese government revealed that it "fully trusts chief executive Leung Chun-ying and is very satisfied with his work".

The impasse looks likely to continue.

Japan's monetary base

Japan was the main loser due as weaker US data and dragged the dollar lower against the yen, hitting Japanese exporters despite Bank of Japan (BOJ) data showing monetary base growth and existence of extra-accommodative policy.

The US dollar sank from six-year highs against the yen, with automobile stocks hard hit on export concerns, with Honda, Nissan and Toyota all declining despite higher sales in the month of September. Suzuki, Mitsubishi and Isuzu were also among losers.

The central bank said the country's monetary base, including cash in circulation and commercial banks' deposits held at the BOJ's current accounts, stood at 252.58trn yen ($2.3trn) at the end of September, marking an all-time high since the first comparable data in 1996.

The monetary base rose 35.3% year on year after soaring 40.5% in August and is projected to rise to 270trn yen at the end of this year if the central bank conducts its monetary operations as planned.

Governor Haruhiko Kuroda last month confirmed that the Japanese economy is on course to achieving his 2% inflation target but was still halfway to attaining the target.