Real estate, homebuilders in global equities focus by Elaine Frei

Equities markets were mixed in the Asia Pacific region and were lower just about everywhere else on Monday as the real estate and house building sectors took hits in many areas, seemingly excluding on the UK house building sector, which benefited from mergers news.

In the Asia Pacific region, the Sydney Ordinaries added 0.54 percent to 5,965 and the Hang Seng index and Tokyo gained 0.37 percent to 19,765.85 but the Strait Times index in Singapore dropped 0.6 percent to 3,204.55, while in India the Sensex fell 1.22 percent to 12,124.32. Meanwhile in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 added 0.2 percent to 17,521.96, while the Topix index held steady at 1,741.37.

In Europe, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 dropped 0.89 percent to 1,510.21, while the Xetra Dax fell 1.02 percent to 6,828.82 and the CAC-40, in Paris, was 1.04 percent lower to 5,576.30. The London equities markets were also lower, with the FTSE 100 dropping 0.75 percent to 6,291.9 and the FTSE 250 falling 0.4 percent to 11,655.6.

At midday in New York, Wall Street was behind, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.7 percent to 12,394.49, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.4 percent to 2,439.47 and the S&P 500 was 0.6 percent lower to 1,427.67.

Oil prices reached their highest point so far this year as tensions over the taking of 15 British naval personnel continued. Metals prices were also mostly higher on the session.