European markets exhibited some resilience on Monday and moved up slightly, after opening lower due to weakened sentiments following the bloody Paris carnage but their Asian counterparts ended sharply lower due to worrying signals on the global economy.
The Euro, however, fell to a six-month low of 1.68 to the US dollar.
The main French index Cac was up around 0.25 percent after logging a loss of over 1 percent in early trade, while Germany's Dax showed a similar trend and was up some 0.10 percent. But Asian markets, on the othjer hand, closed in the negative territory.
The main cause for worry was the Japanese economy back in recession for the second time.
Analysts said geopolitical issues following the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday that had set off massive airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Syria by France on Sunday also had an effect on the market mood.
While the Japanese Nikkei was down 1 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng took a hit of 1.7 percent. But the Chinese Shanghai Composite ended higher. The mood was also hit by some worrying signals like falling crude prices and weak data on economic recovery in Europe and the US, analysts said.
"US markets closed in the red following the recent trend of a negative close in seven of the last eight trading sessions. The continued weakness was on account of weak retail sales data, which rose less than expected in the month of October," Angel Broking said in an analysis.
The main French market, the Euronext, has made it clear it will not be cowed down by the terror attacks. "Markets will open as normal at Euronext on Monday," it had said in a statement, adding extra security will be in place to ensure the safety of its staff.
The movement of a key Indian equity market index followed the trend in other Asian markets. The sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) opened in the red and drifted lower. But after two hours into trading it started moving up and ended higher by 0.58 percent.
