Asian markets close day with mixed figures

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - After strong sales in global markets due to inflation concerns on Tuesday, Asian and European markets posted mixed figures on Wednesday.

The US and Germany inflation figures and minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting will be released on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, European Union's industrial output saw a negative results in August on a monthly basis, down by 1.5%.

The Asia Dow, which includes blue-chip companies in the region, lost 11.93 points, or 0.31%, to close at nearly 3,842 points.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 stock exchange also decreased 90.3 points, or 0.32%, to 28,140. The Hang Seng, the benchmark for blue-chip stocks trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange, saw a decrease of 362.5 points, or 1.43%, to 24,962.

China's Shanghai stock exchange was up by 14.8 points or 0.42% to reach almost 3,561 points and the Singapore index increased by 44.4 points, or 1.43%, to reach 3,156.

The Indian Sensex benchmark saw an increase of 457.6 points, or 0.76%, to reach 60,741 points.

- European markets

The STOXX Europe 600, which includes around 90% of the market capitalization of the European market in 17 countries, was up by 2.08 points, or 0.45%, to 459.3 as of 0948GMT.

London's FTSE 100 decreased 12 points, or 0.17%, to 7,118, and Germany's DAX index reached 15,129 points, up by 101.3 points or 0.67%.

The French CAC 40 lost 10.5 points, or 0.16%, to 6,558 points, while Italy's FTSE MIB posted a drop of 17.3 points, or 0.07%, to 25,972 points.

Spain's IBEX 35 also dropped 24.3 points, or 0.27%, to 8,911 points.