Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Wednesday as investors turned cautious ahead of the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision due later in the day. However, modest gains overnight on Wall Street and as tech giant Apple reported weaker than expected revenues as well as a surprise fall in iPhone sales in the second quarter capped some losses. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, Malaysia and Indonesia are edging lower. Bucking the trend, Singapore, and Taiwan are higher. The stock markets in South Korea and Hong Kong are closed in observance of Buddha's birthday, while the markets in Japan are closed for the rest of the week for the Golden Week holiday.
Shanghai Composite declined 10.31 points or 0.33% to 3,133.40, Jakarta Composite dropped 4.3 points or 0.08% to 5,671.50, and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 0.03 points or 0% to 1,778.44.
On the flip side, Straits Times added 20.12 points or 0.63% to 3,231.23, and Taiwan Weighted was up by 6.02 points or 0.06% to 9,947.29.