Markets mostly fall but Nikkei 225 rises on improved business sentiment

Markets mostly fell on Monday.

The S&P 500 fell 0.2 percent and the STOXX Europe 600 fell 0.5 percent.

The yield on the US 10-year Treasury note fell 5 basis points to 2.335 percent.

“I expect we’ll see some softness until earnings start to come in,” said Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst at Phoenix Financial Services.

Earlier on Monday, however, the Nikkei 225 rose 0.4 percent after the Bank of Japan's quarterly survey showed that the diffusion index of large manufacturers’ views on their current business conditions improved for the second consecutive quarter.

Indeed, Goldman Sachs strategists wrote in a report that now could be the time for foreign investors to return to Japanese equities.

Or braver investors could move into emerging markets. A Bloomberg report suggested that a widened growth gap, improving earnings outlooks and a greater valuation discount support a bullish outlook for emerging equity markets.