Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Thursday, with overnight Wall Street losses acting as a drag, while the dollar held to broad gains after minutes from the Federal Reserve's April meeting contained no major surprises. The Japanese market gained on hopes that its long-moribund economy was finally coming to life, but weak China factory activity capped stock market gains in much of the rest of Asia. Among the other markets in the Asian region, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia are down with modest losses. Meanwhile, Shanghai and Japan are higher.
Hang Seng declined 10.51 points or 0.04% to 27,574.54, KOSPI Index contracted 14.76 points or 0.69% to 2,124.78, Straits Times slipped 0.74 points or 0.02% to 3,438.94, Jakarta Composite dropped10.99 points or 0.21% to 5,281.76, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 2.89 points or 0.16% to 1,807.22 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 97.53 points or 1.02% to 9,586.05.
On the flip side, Nikkei 225 gained 105.52 points or 0.52% to 20,302.08 and Shanghai Composite was up by 49.81 points or 1.12% to 4,496.10.