Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Thursday, following the mixed cues overnight from Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above the 22,000 level for the first time. Investors are cautious ahead of the Bank of England's interest rate decision due later in the day and Friday's US jobs data. Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei share average fell as investors wasted little time taking profits in tech shares which rose the previous day after Apple posted strong quarterly earnings. Among the other Asian markets, South Korea, Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Taiwan are also lower. Bucking the trend, Malaysia is higher.
Nikkei 225 dipped 48.7 points or 0.24% to 20,031.34, Hang Seng dropped 40.58 points or 0.15% to 27,566.80, Straits Times slipped 11.85 points or 0.35% to 3,336.95, KOSPI Index declined 38.51 points or 1.59% to 2,389.12, Jakarta Composite decreased 21.89 points or 0.38% to 5,802.36, Shanghai Composite contracted 7.87 points or 0.24% to 3,277.19, and Taiwan Weighted was down by 48.94 points or 0.47% to 10,470.33.
On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was up by 0.11 points or 0.01% to 1,770.72.