Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Wednesday after a record run on Wall Street showed signs of petering out, while the dollar hovered near a four-month high against a basket of currencies following upbeat US data. Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei share average dropped for the first time in seven days as Wall Street pulled back, hitting sentiment and triggering profit-taking from the recent gains. Among the other Asian markets, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Shanghai are lower. Bucking the trend, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Indonesia are higher.
Nikkei 225 dropped 114.80 points or 0.69% to 16,608.51, KOSPI Index dipped 4.08 points or 0.20% to 2,012.81, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI declined 6.17 points or 0.37% to 1,664.38, Shanghai Composite slipped 0.73 points or 0.02% to 3,035.87, and Taiwan Weighted was down by 59.20 points or 0.66% to 8,975.67.
On the flip side, Straits Times added 24.40 points or 0.84% to 2,943.94, Hang Seng gained 165.47 points or 0.76 % to 21,838.67, and Jakarta Composite was up by 42.44 points or 0.82% to 5,215.27.