Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading up in the early deals on Friday in choppy trade with investors largely shrugging off political uncertainty in the UK. An exit poll indicated that British Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party might have lost its parliamentary majority. The British pound weakened in volatile trade on the likelihood of a hung parliament in the UK. Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei soared as index-heavyweight SoftBank leapt 7 percent after its unit agreed to buy a robotics firm, but traders said chances of a shock election result in the UK, where the vote was underway, had put investors on edge. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore are also higher. Bucking the trend, Indonesia, Taiwan and Hong Kong are modestly lower.
Nikkei 225 rose 124.02 points or 0.62% to 20,033.28, KOSPI Index added 18.22 points or 0.77% to 2,381.79, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI gained 2.91 points or 0.16% to 1,788.48, Shanghai Composite increased 2.12 points or 0.07% to 3,152.45, and Straits Times was up by 11.06 points or 0.34% to 3,248.11.
On the flip side, Hang Seng dropped 63.86 points or 0.25% to 25,999.20, Jakarta Composite dipped 11.16 points or 0.2% to 5,691.76, and Taiwan Weighted was down by 4.63 points or 0.05% to 10,221.15.