Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Thursday after the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in a year and pointed to a faster pace of increases than was previously expected. However, the Japanese market is rising for the eighth straight day as the yen weakened to an eleven-month low against the US dollar after the Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate for the first time in a year. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan are all in negative territory.
Hang Seng dropped 380.24 points or 1.69% to 22,076.38, Taiwan Weighted dipped 27.09 points or 0.29% to 9,341.43, Straits Times slipped 21.44 points or 0.73% to 2,932.62, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 7.03 points or 0.43% to 1,636.26, KOSPI Index declined 1.23 points or 0.06% to 2,035.64, Jakarta Composite contracted 6.23 points or 0.12% to 5,256.59, and Shanghai Composite was down by 9.22 points or 0.29% to 3,131.31.
On the flip side, Nikkei 225 was up by 16.46 points or 0.09% to 19,270.07.