Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading in green in the early deals on Thursday, following the firmer lead from Wall Street in the last session. Investors in the region also digested the release of Chinese inflation data and kept an eye on President Donald Trump's stop in Beijing. Meanwhile, the Japanese market is advancing, with the gains on Wall Street and strong first-half earnings results from domestic companies boosting sentiments. Investors shrugged off weaker than expected core machine orders data. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong are also higher. Bucking the trend, Indonesia, South Korea, and Taiwan are modestly lower.
Nikkei 225 rose 401.77 points or 1.75% to 23,315.59, Hang Seng jumped 262.62 points or 0.91% to 29,170.22, Straits Times added 5.28 points or 0.15% to 3,426.53, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI gained 3.16 points or 0.18% to 1,747.36, and Shanghai Composite was up by 0.86 points or 0.03% to 3,416.32.
On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted declined 62.57 points or 0.58% to 10,756.42, Jakarta Composite dropped 6.95 points or 0.11% to 6,042.43, and KOSPI Index was down by 1.35 points or 0.05% to 2,551.05.