Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Friday, after recent strong gains and despite the record highs overnight on Wall Street following the European Central Bank's highly anticipated monetary policy announcement. Though, Japanese stocks rose to their highest level in a year, supported by Wall Street gains and solid buying of exporters on the back of a weaker yen. Among the other Asian markets, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia are in negative territory. Bucking the trend, Shanghai and Taiwan are higher.
Hang Seng declined 63.90 points or 0.28% to 22,797.94, KOSPI Index decreased by 9.37 points or 0.46% to 2,021.70, Jakarta Composite contracted 14.58 points or 0.27% to 5,289.16, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI slipped 4.24 points or 0.26% to 1,639.51, and Straits Times was down by 5.92 points or 0.20% to 2,952.94.
On the flip side, Nikkei 225 jumped 234.88 points or 1.25% to 19,000.35, Shanghai Composite gained 22.22 points or 0.69% to 3,237.58, and Taiwan Weighted was up by 4.06 points or 0.04% to 9,379.92.