Asian stocks come off their tops in quiet holiday Monday trading

• Asian markets are largely off for Monday, but the action being seen is pointing downside.
• Restrained volumes are kicking off the new week, with risk sentiment backpedaling as China-US relations worsened over the weekend.

Across the broad Asia-Pacific region, a majority of major indexes are shuttered for various long-weekend holidays, but the thin action occurring in equities that are seeing play today is predominantly to the bearish side.

China has slammed the door on possible trade talks with the US for the time being after renewed threats of sanctions by the US government in retaliation for purchasing jets, missiles, and other weapons systems from blackballed Russian weapons providers who are under their own tightening grip of US sanctions, and China's attempted circumvention of US foreign policy sees more penalties to come from the American government, and the already-flimsy hope of trade talks between the US and China has been firmly torpedoed.

Markets are trading quietly on holiday Monday for China, Japan, and parts of Australia, but Hong Kong's tireless Hang Seng index is off of recent highs, in the red for -1.25% today, while Australia's ASX 200 remains relatively flat, but still off slightly at -0.07%.

Hang Seng levels to watch

Hong Kong's major bourse, the Hang Seng, is back down to 27,600 after peaking just below 28,000 last week; a continuation of the current selloff will see yet another lower high marked in for the index, with a declining trendline firmly in place from August's peak just above 29,000, while the current floor rests at mid-September's bottom of 26,220.