Asia close: Stocks end mostly lower with Israel-Hamas war in focus

(Sharecast News) - Stocks in the Asia Pacific region ended mostly lower on Monday as investors around the world kept a close eye on the news-flow out of the Middle East. In particular, investors were focused on the risk for a wider regional conflict should Iran or its proxies in Lebanon step into the war between Israel and Hamas.

Japan's Nikkei-225 gave back 2.03% to see the day out from 31,695.03, alongside a 0.97% drop on Hong Kong's hang Seng that took it to 17,640.36.

South Korea's Kospi also slipped, finishing down by 0.81% to 2,436.24.

In parallel, both the Japanese yen and China's yuan were nearly unchanged against the U.S. dollar at 149.55 and 7.3123, respectively.

However, there were some supportive news out of Beijing.

On Sunday, the People's Bank of China kept the interest rate on its medium-term lending facility unchanged at 2.5%, as expected.

Yet the PBoC injected almost 200bn yuan of fresh MLF funds into the country's banking system.

Economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics said the move was "likely intended to top up the banking system's lending capacity to maintain credit growth in these areas, thus facilitating the existing targeted measures."

That decision was followed by an announcement out of China's Securities Regulatory Commission of curbs on short-selling starting from 30 October.