Shares of Deutsche Bank AG have fallen sharply after Germany's biggest lender announced a large fourth-quarter net loss, its results weighed down by one-time expenses and losses on investments it is disposing of.

Deutsche Bank shares were down 4.5 percent in early trading Monday at 37.6 euros ($50.91), making it the worst performer on Frankfurt's DAX index of blue chip stocks.

Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell announced on Monday the sale of stakes in Australian natural gas assets for more than one billion U.S. dollars to a Kuwaiti state company.

Shell said it had agreed to sell its 8.0-percent equity interest in the Wheatstone-Iago gas field and 6.4-percent interest in the Wheatstone liquefied natural gas project for $1.135 billion (837 million euros) to the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company.

China's economy last year registered flat growth of 7.7 percent, maintaining its slowest expansion in more than a decade as the government warned Monday of "deep-rooted problems" including a mountain of local authority debt.

Gross domestic product (GDP) expansion for the October-December quarter also came in at 7.7 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, from 7.8 percent in the previous three months.

Nintendo shares plunged nearly 19 percent Monday before recouping most of those losses after the Japanese gaming giant warned it would slip back into the red on poor sales of its Wii U game console.

The warning, released after the Tokyo market closed Friday, highlighted a growing chasm between Nintendo and global rivals Sony and Microsoft, as well as the trio's battle against cheap -- or sometimes free -- downloadable games for smartphones and tablets.

China has started constructing the second of four planned aircraft carriers, a top government official said according to media reports on Saturday.

The ship is under construction in the northeastern port of Dalian and will take six years to build, the reports said quoting Wang Min, Communist Party chief for Dalian's Liaoning province.

U.S. President Barack Obama signed a $1.1 trillion dollar spending bill Friday that effectively ends the threat of a repeat government shutdown.

Obama signed the massive bill, passed by Congress this week in a rare budget truce, in front of officials from his Office of Management and Budget.

Moody's raised Ireland's sovereign debt rating on Friday, pulling it out of junk territory to an investment-grade Baa3 in recognition of the eurozone country's exit from a huge EU-IMF rescue program.

One month after Ireland reclaimed its economic independence, the ratings agency also placed the country on a positive outlook, citing the economy's growth potential and improved debt outlook.

Macau gambling tycoon Lui Che-woo has replaced Hong Kong multi-billionaire Li Ka-shing as Asia's richest man, according to Bloomberg on Friday.

Lui, the head of Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment, saw his fortune rise $3.5 billion this month to $29.6 billion, about $100 million ahead of Li, whose fortune stood at $29.5 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Thursday.

Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest lender, said on Friday it is pulling out of the process for the daily fixing of gold and silver prices.

"Deutsche Bank is withdrawing its participation in the gold and silver benchmark setting process following the significant scaling back of our commodities business," the bank said in a statement.

Major Japanese bank Mizuho Financial Group said Friday it was setting up an oversight committee in the wake of a damaging loans-to-gangsters scandal.

The watchdog was among the measures that Mizuho outlined in a report to regulators on how it would deal with the embarrassing revelations, which have also engulfed rivals Mitsubishi UFJ and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.