Asian equity benchmarks are trading up in the early deals on Thursday following the positive cues overnight from Wall Street after the release of the latest Federal Reserve minutes. Investors are looking ahead to an OPEC meeting later in the day, which is widely expected to extend output cuts. The FOMC minutes were consistent with another hike in June, but conditional on recent economic softness proving transitory. Policy makers also discussed scaling back their $4 trillion-plus holdings of mortgage-backed bonds and longer-term US government bonds. Meanwhile, Japanese stocks edged up as investors bought futures after the yen weakened in Asian trade, while a surge in index-heavyweights such as SoftBank supported sentiment. Among the other Asian markets, South Korea, Singapore, Shanghai, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan are all higher. The markets in Indonesia are closed for the Ascension Day holiday.
Nikkei 225 added 70.45 points or 0.36% to 19,813.43, Hang Seng jumped 148.1 points or 0.58% to 25,576.60, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI gained 10.74 points or 0.61% to 1,781.75, Shanghai Composite increased 11.9 points or 0.39% to 3,075.98, KOSPI Index rose 20.63 points or 0.89% to 2,337.97, Taiwan Weighted spurt 52.38 points or 0.52% to 10,096.80, and Straits Times was up by 12.61 points or 0.39% to 3,243.85.