Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading up in the early deals on Thursday, after Wall Street recovered overnight from an early sell-off and as the rebound in commodity prices lifted resources stocks. However, investors are treading cautiously after China further lowered the Yuan’s reference rate on Thursday. Meanwhile, the Japanese stock market is up with modest gains following the positive lead overnight from Wall Street and despite the release of weaker than expected Japanese core machine orders data. Among the other Asian markets, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan are up with modest gains. Bucking the trend, the Shanghai market is marginally lower.
Nikkei 225 gained 131.93 points or 0.65% to 20,524.70, Hang Seng rose 70.74 points or 0.30% to 23,986.76, Straits Times added 35.34 points or 1.15% to 3,096.83, Jakarta Composite surged 81.89 points or 1.83% to 4,561.38, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 16.19 points or 1.01% to 1,626.12, Taiwan Weighted jumped 33.00 points or 0.40% to 8,316.38 and KOSPI Index was up by 14.32 points or 0.72% to 1,989.79.
On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down by 24.26 points or 0.62% to 3,862.06.