Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Wednesday tracking the negative lead overnight from Wall Street and persistently weak crude oil prices. Investors also remained cautious as they await monetary policy decisions from the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England this week and also look ahead to the Dutch election vote today. Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei share average slipped dragged down by a firmer yen and Wall Street's overnight retreat. Among the other Asian markets, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan are also lower. Bucking the trend, Shanghai, and Indonesia is modestly higher.
Nikkei 225 dipped 64.42 points or 0.33% to 19,545.08, KOSPI Index contracted 2.28 points or 0.11% to 2,131.50, Taiwan Weighted slipped 3.26 points or 0.03% to 9,740.95, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI declined 5.62 points or 0.33% to 1,716.85, Straits Times dropped 7.66 points or 0.24% to 3,135.74, and Hang Seng was down by 12.92 points or 0.05% to 23,815.03.
On the flip side, Shanghai Composite gained 2.64 points or 0.08% to 3,241.97, and Jakarta Composite was up by 3.21 points or 0.06% to 5,434.79.