Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Thursday after the US Federal Reserve revived market expectations that it might still be on track to raise interest rates by year-end. Meanwhile, the Japanese market edged lower after opening higher following the positive cues from Wall Street and better-than-expected Japanese industrial output data for September. Industrial production in Japan was up a seasonally adjusted 1.0 percent on month in September. That beat forecasts for a decline of 0.5 percent following the 1.2 percent contraction in August.
Nikkei 225 declined 63.59 points or 0.34% to 18,839.43, KOSPI Index contracted 7.68 points or 0.38% to 2,034.83, Jakarta Composite slipped 73.49 points or 1.59% to 4,535.25, Hang Seng dropped 87.43 points or 0.38% to 22,869.14, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 11.87 points or 0.70% to 1,674.64, Straits Times dipped 25.57 points or 0.84% to 3,014.94, and Taiwan Weighted was down by 88.66 points or 1.02% to 8,577.33.
On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was up by 4.18 points or 0.12% to 3,379.38.