Asian markets are showing mixed trend in early deals on Thursday, with jobs data in Australia not providing a major lift to Sydney and Chinese data on retail sales and industrial output disappointing expectations slightly. The Japanese market slipped into negative territory after opening higher following the mostly positive lead overnight from Wall Street after the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates by a quarter point as widely expected. Further, China and Hong Kong stocks fell modestly as investors shrugged off the Federal Reserves’ widely expected US rate hike as well as China’s nudging-up of some rates and tepid November economic data. Among the other Asian markets, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, and Taiwan are higher. Bucking the trend, Singapore is in negative territory.
Nikkei 225 dipped 89.87 points or 0.39% to 22,668.20, Shanghai Composite declined 6.73 points or 0.2% to 3,296.31, Straits Times dropped 30.29 points or 0.87% to 3,438.48, and Hang Seng was down by 5.98 points or 0.02% to 29,216.12.
On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI added 16.03 points or 0.92% to 1,753.69, Jakarta Composite gained 23.62 points or 0.39% to 6,078.23, KOSPI Index rose 29.01 points or 1.17% to 2,509.56, and Taiwan Weighted was up by 82.61 points or 0.79% to 10,553.31.