Europe, US equities markets lower

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 places. The exception seemed to be the UK, where house builders saw gains after George Wimpy (LSE: WMPY) and Taylor Woodrow (LSE: TWOD) said they had agreed to merger terms.

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. The real estate sector and homebuilders held the indices back, but the consumer finance sector did will on the session

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 European automobile manufacturing sector saw declines on the session. Banks in Europe also ended lower.

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. The declines came even though house builders were sent higher by the announcement that George Wimpy (LSE: WMPY) and Taylor Woodrow (LSE: TWOD) have agreed to terms on a merger. In addition, there were rumors that Persimmon (LSE: PSN) might make a counter bid. The UK oil sector saw gains as well.

At midday in New York, Wall Street was behind. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped 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 down 0.6 percent to 1,427.67. Homebuilders were down after new data from the Commerce Department showed that sales of existing homes was down by 3.9 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 848,000, the slowest rate of sales in almost seven years. Mortgage lenders also saw declines based on the new home sales figures.

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