Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading up in the early deals on Thursday, following the modest gains overnight on Wall Street. However, gains are muted as investors treaded cautiously ahead of the European Central Bank's monetary policy meeting and an OPEC meeting in Vienna later in the day. Japanese stocks headed for their biggest two-day drop in a month after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe disappointed investors by failing to provide details of a fiscal stimulus package as he announced a delay to a sales-tax increase. Among the other Asian markets, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia are up with modest gains, on the other hand Shanghai, and Taiwan are in negative territory.
Hang Seng added 12.39 points or 0.06% to 20,773.37, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI surged 5.06 points or 0.31% to 1,631.56, Straits Times increased 3.73 points or 0.13% to 2,794.27, KOSPI Index gained 3.39 points or 0.17% to 1,986.11, and Jakarta Composite was up by 6.64 points or 0.14% to 4,846.31.
On the flip side, Nikkei 225 dipped 401.24 points or 2.37% to 16,554.49, Shanghai Composite dropped 6.34 points or 0.22% to 2,907.17, and Taiwan Weighted was down by 24.81 points or 0.29% to 8,572.35.