Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Wednesday as tensions continue to ratchet up on the Korean Peninsula following a warning from North Korea of a nuclear attack on the US. Meanwhile, Japanese stocks fell to their lowest in more than four months as rising geopolitical tensions dragged all sectors into negative territory, with exporters hit hard as the safe haven yen spiked to a five-month high. Also there was weaker-than-expected core machinery order data. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are in negative territory. Bucking the trend, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea is higher.
Nikkei 225 declined 231.92 points or 1.24% to 18,515.95, Taiwan Weighted dropped 20.59 points or 0.21% to 9,811.83, Straits Times slipped 5.97 points or 0.19% to 3,168.78, Shanghai Composite dipped 10.43 points or 0.32% to 3,278.53 and Hang Seng was down by 41.99 points or 0.17% to 24,046.47.
On the flip side, Jakarta Composite added 20.29 points or 0.36% to 5,648.23, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI gained 1.61 points or 0.09% to 1,737.45, and KOSPI Index was up by 2.12 points or 0.10% to 2,125.97.