All the Asian equity markets ended in green on Thursday as a slew of corporate earnings came through and as markets digested the Federal Reserve's widely expected decision to hold interest rates steady at the end the Federal Open Market Committee's two-day policy meeting Wednesday. While the Fed laid the groundwork to soon begin winding down its massive stimulus program, investors honed in on the committee's choice of language on when the move to trim the central bank's balance sheet would kick off. Normalization of the balance sheet would be implemented ‘relatively soon’, the post meeting statement noted. This was a slight tweak compared to the Fed's use of ‘this year’ after the June meeting. Japanese shares ended up on expectations that the Bank of Japan would maintain its monetary stimulus program longer than most other global central banks. Further, Chinese shares ended little changed even as data showed China's major industrial firms posted increased profit growth in June.
Asian Indices | Last Trade | Change in Points | Change in % |
Shanghai Composite | 3,249.78 | 2.11 | 0.06 |
Hang Seng | 27,131.17 | 190.15 | 0.71 |
Jakarta Composite | 5,819.74 | 19.54 | 0.34 |
KLSE Composite | 1,770.07 | 4.07 | 0.23 |
Nikkei 225 | 20,079.64 | 29.48 | 0.15 |
Straits Times | 3,354.71 | 17.99 | 0.54 |
KOSPI Composite | 2,443.24 | 8.73 | 0.36 |
Taiwan Weighted | 10,508.37 | 89.26 | 0.86 |