SYDNEY, NSW, Australia - Stocks across Asia rose on Monday, in a positive start to the week.

The U.S. dollar was mixed, but was losing ground against the majors.

"I don't think anyone's got any smoking guns for this market right now," Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone said Monday. "If you're looking for proper risk-on, all markets moving the same direction, correlation across asset classes going to 1, we're not seeing that today."

"The Aussie's the worst performer, the yen's the best performer, you're not seeing much love in crypto, there's no real move in the energy space. It's more of an equities story today," Weston added.

The Australian All Ordinaries and Hong Kong's Hang Seng were the stand-outs Monday with gains of around two percent.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng closed ahead 510.46 points or 2.35 percent at 22,229.52.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 gained 379.30 points or 1.43 percent to 26,871.27.

China's Shanghai Composite advanced 29.44 points or 0.88 percent to 3,379.19.

In New Zealand, the S&P/NZX 50 rallied 184.00 points or 1.70 percent to 10,997.92.

The Australian All Ordinaries climbed 131.20 points or 1.94 percent to 6,893.60.

South Korea's Kospi Composite firmed 35.33 points or 1.49 percent to 10,997.92.

Meanwhile, on FX markets the euro rose strongly to 1.0581 by the Sydney close Monday. The British pound jumped to 1.2329. The Japanese yen steadied at 135.02, while the Swiss franc firmed to 0.9570.

The Canadian dollar rose to 1.2869. The Australian dollar edged up to 0.6941. The New Zealand dollar was a fraction higher at 0.6317.

(Photo credit: EPA).