Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Wednesday, as investors adopted a cautious stance ahead of the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision due later in the day. Though, Hong Kong stocks traded higher as shares of China Telecom jumped on the back of strong operating results for last month. Among the other Asian markets, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, and Taiwan are lower. Bucking the trend, Nikkei, and Shanghai are in positive territory.
Taiwan Weighted dropped 67.95 points or 0.64% to 10,508.19, Jakarta Composite declined 4.7 points or 0.08% to 5,896.63, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 3.45 points or 0.19% to 1,773.21, Straits Times slipped 6.43 points or 0.20% to 3,219.52, and KOSPI Index was down by 1.44 points or 0.06% to 2,414.61.
On the flip side, Nikkei 225 gained 5.92 points or 0.03% to 20,305.30, Shanghai Composite added 7.49 points or 0.22% to 3,364.34, and Hang Seng was up by 63.05 points or 0.22% to 28,114.46.