Asia, Europe Stocks Mostly Lower Ahead Of Bank Of Japan And Federal Reserve Meetings

Asian stocks were mostly in the red on Monday ahead of the Bank of Japan's meeting on Thursday.

Japan's central bank may introduce negative lending rates, at least according to Kathy Lien of BK Asset Management.

CNBC quoted the analyst as saying in a note, "There are now reports that the BOJ could introduce negative lending rates to complement negative deposit rates. With the Japanese economy struggling under the weight of a strong yen and slower global growth and speculators holding a record amount of long yen positions, the chance of easing by the BOJ is high."

The U.S. Federal Reserve will also meet this week. Coupled with the Bank of Japan's meeting, investors remain on edge, and it showed in Monday's trading action in Asia and Europe.

Find out what's going on in today's market and bring any questions you have to Benzinga's PreMarket Prep.

Japan's Nikkei index lost 0.76 percent, as did Hong Kong's Hang Seng index. India's Mumbai Sensex index lost 0.62 percent and China's Shanghai index shed 0.42 percent

Taiwan's TSEC index gained 0.29 percent.

European equity indices were also firmly in the red with more than 4 hours of trading remaining. France's CAC index was lower by 0.49 percent, Germany's DAX lost 0.44 percent while the UK's FTSE index shed 0.19 percent.

The price of a barrel of oil traded lower by 1.30 percent ahead of Monday's U.S. market open, while hold and other metals saw slight gains.