Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading up in the early deals on Thursday, following a mixed close stateside as investors’ monitored potential fallout on President Donald Trump's policies after FBI Director James Comey was fired. Meanwhile, the Japanese market is modestly higher, following the mixed cues overnight from Wall Street and higher crude oil prices. Investors are cautious as they digested a raft of local economic data. Among the other Asian markets, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Taiwan are all higher. Bucking the trend, Shanghai is modestly lower. The markets in Indonesia are closed in observance of Wesak Day.
Nikkei 225 added 54.93 points or 0.28% to 19,955.02, Hang Seng gained 63.41 points or 0.25% to 25,078.83, KOSPI Index increased 21.5 points or 0.95% to 2,291.62, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 11.03 points or 0.62% to 1,777.59, Straits Times spurt 18.87 points or 0.58% to 3,268.84, and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.36 points or 0% to 9,968.68.
On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down by 11.79 points or 0.39% to 3,041.00.