Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower on Thursday, ollowing the lackluster cues overnight from Wall Street and the decline in crude oil prices. Investors are also awaiting remarks by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who is due to testify about the economic outlook before Congress's Joint Economic Committee. The Japanese market retreated from a more than nine-month high touched in the previous session and is modestly lower, with the central bank's first fixed-rate debt purchasing operation hurting the financial stocks. In mid-morning, the Bank of Japan launched its first fixed-rate debt purchasing operation to bring down bond yields, momentarily lifting the Nikkei to positive territory as the dollar pared losses against the yen after the operation. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea are trading lower, while the Singapore and Taiwan markets are in positive territory.
Nikkei 225 declined 21.62 points or 0.12% to 17,840.59, Hang Seng dipped 20.61 points or 0.09% to 22,259.92, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI slipped 2.48 points or 0.15% to 1,625.15, KOSPI Index decreased 0.77 points or 0.04% to 1,978.88, Jakarta Composite slipped 1.82 points or 0.04 % to 5,183.65, and Shanghai Composite was down by 9.80 points or 0.31% to 3,195.26.
On the flip side, Straits Times gained 14.06 points or 0.5% to 2,808.05, and Taiwan Weighted was up by 17.55 points or 0.2% to 8,979.77.
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