Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading higher in the early deals on Wednesday tracking the positive cues overnight from Wall Street and higher commodity prices. The US dollar strengthened, while crude oil prices edged lower in Asian trades. Meanwhile, Japanese market edged higher as investors tracked the positive cues overnight from Wall Street and digested mixed local economic data. Among the other Asian markets, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan are higher. Bucking the trend, Shanghai, Hong Kong and South Korea are modestly lower.
Nikkei 225 added 27.52 points or 0.14% to 19,430.58, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI gained 7.11 points or 0.44% to 1,626.79, Taiwan Weighted rose 91.13 points or 1% to 9,199.95, Straits Times increased 9.76 points or 0.34% to 2,895.52, and Jakarta Composite was up by 95.35 points or 1.87% to 5,198.30.
On the flip side, KOSPI Index declined 15.08 points or 0.74% to 2,027.76, Hang Seng decreased 6.71 points or 0.03% to 21,568.05, and Shanghai Composite was down by 8.42 points or 0.27% to 3,106.24.