Asian markets traded mixed today ahead of a week packed with major quarterly earnings announcements. So Japan's Nikkei-225 index fell 0.7 percent; Singapore's Straits Times index shed 0.1 percent. But China's Shanghai Composite index climbed 0.8 percent and South Korea's Kospi index ended 0.5 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index ended marginally higher.

In Europe, London's FTSE-100 had risen 0.5 percent and Germany's DAX had gained 0.3 percent, but France's CAC-40 had shed 0.1 percent, in intra-day trade.