Asia: Stocks slide as China worries persist

Asian stocks were in the red as China lost further ground amid concerns about the slowdown in the world’s second largest economy.

At the end of trading Shanghai’s index plunged 5.32%, the Hang Seng dropped 2.76% while the Nikkei was closed for the holiday.

The market plunged without the so-called circuit breaker rule, which was suspended on Friday just four days after being introduced. The mechanism, which suspends trading on China's main stock markets if the CSI 300 index falls 7%, was activated twice last week.

Meanwhile, data on Saturday showed China’s inflation rose to 1.6% year-on-year, as expected, compared with 1.5% the previous month.

However, the producer price was unchanged at minus 5.9% in December, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

“While China’s yuan currency was fixed slightly firmer, note Saturday’s Chinese inflation data which saw consumer price inflation edge up as expected to 1.6% but producer prices remain under pressure and fail to deliver the uptick expected by consensus,” said Mike van Dulken and Augustin Eden at Accendo Markets

“This data will only add to hopes of more intervention by the People’s Bank of China to both buoy the equity markets as well as the flagging growth that is concerning investors worldwide.”

The PBoC on Monday set the yuan's reference rate against the dollar at 6.5626, up on Friday's fixing of 6.5636.

In company news, Samsung Electronics slumped after the company missed its profit targets for the fourth quarter of 2015 last week.

Doosan slid as its subsidiary reportedly sold 305 billion won worth of shares in fighter jet manufacturer Korean Aerospace Industries.

Fast Retailing Co. declined after cutting its earnings forecasts by 10%.

Ryohin Keikaku Co. gained after the company raised its full-year operating profit target by 3.1%.