Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading higher in the early deals on Thursday, tracking the overnight gains on Wall Street and as the US dollar retreated from 14-year highs. Investors also digested minutes from the Federal Reserve's December meeting released overnight, which indicated that the Fed's decision to raise interest rates by a quarter point was partly due to an assumption of more expansionary fiscal policy under President-elect Donald Trump. Meanwhile, crude oil prices slipped in Asian trades after advancing on Wednesday. Japanese shares were trading lower as the yen strengthened against the dollar. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan are all higher. Bucking the trend, South Korea is modestly lower.
Hang Seng added 288.29 points or 1.30% to 22,422.76, Jakarta Composite gained 22.50 points or 0.42% to 5,323.68, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI jumped 6.59 points or 0.40% to 1,654.06, Shanghai Composite rose 3.57 points or 0.11% to 3,162.37, Taiwan Weighted surged 60.92 points or 0.66% to 9,347.88, and Straits Times was up by 34.64 points or 1.19% to 2,955.95.
On the flip side, Nikkei 225 dropped 50.20 points or 0.26% to 19,543.96, and KOSPI Index was down by 2.39 points or 0.12% to 2,043.25.