The Asian markets were showing a mixed trend on Thursday morning with some indices trading lower by over a quarter percent, following the mixed cues overnight from Wall Street after minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting said it might be appropriate to raise interest rates again "fairly soon" if the data is in line or stronger than expectations. The Japanese market was trading lower despite the Bank of Japan stating that corporate service prices in Japan were up 0.5 percent on year in January. That was in line with expectations and unchanged from the December reading, as yen strengthened against dollar. The country will see final December numbers for the leading and coincident indexes today.
KOSPI Index was tad higher by 0.27 points or 0.01% to 2,106.88, Jakarta Composite gained 7.23 points or 0.13% to 5,365.91.
On the other hand, Hang Seng slumped by117.19 points or 0.48% to 24,084.77, Nikkei 225 declined by 45.31 points or 0.23% to 19,334.56, Shanghai Composite was lower by 12.84 points or 0.39% to 3,248.38, Taiwan Weighted was down by 5.8 points or 0.06% to 9,772.98 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was touch lower by 0.02 points to 1,708.06.