Asia report: Stocks start Q3 on a mixed note, Nikkei-225 paces gains

Stocks in the Asia Pacific area started the third quarter on a mixed note.

Japan's Nikkei-225 added 1.07% to 26,215.79, buoyed by gains of 4.6% for Tokyo Electron and a 3.5% advance for Toyota Motors, but the Hang Seng in Hong Kong slipped 0.89% to 17,069.43.

In currency markets, the US dollar edged up by 0.17% to 144.98 yen, having earlier risen past 145 for the first time since Japanese authorities intervened in FX markets on 22 September.

Chinese and South Korean exchanges were closed on Monday in observance of public holidays.

Taiwan's TAIEX index meanwhile gave back 0.92% to 13,300.48 while Australia's ASX 200 index dipped 0.27% to 6,456.87.

Brent crude oil futures rose by 3.7% to $88.83 a barrel on the ICE, amid reports that OPEC+ was mulling a production of over a 1.0m barrels a day when it next met on Wednesday.

On the economic side of things, S&P Global's factory sector purchasing managers' index for Japan fell from an August reading of 51.5 to 50.8.

The survey compiler noted that new orders fell at their sharpest pace for two years, despite the weaker yen, which it said was doing little to bolster demand but was feeding further price pressures.

Taiwan fared even worse with a separate PMI report falling from 42.7 to 42.2, while the average reading of 43.2 over the third quarter marked the worst quarterly performance since the last quarter of 2008, during the global financial crisis.