Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading in green in the early deals on Thursday following the slight gains on Wall Street and as a rally in crude oil prices paused, while copper prices surged to their highest levels in almost four years overnight. Trading volume continued to remain thin in the holiday-shortened week between Christmas and New Year. Meanwhile, Japan’s Nikkei share average edged up although wider gains in industrial-related stocks were offset by weakness in banking shares as activity waned heading into the year-end. China stocks rose, inspired by a jump in consumer shares after the nation's leading liquor maker Kweichow Moutai forecast a 58 percent surge in 2017 profit. Among the other Asian markets, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan are higher. Bucking the trend, Indonesia is marginally lower.
Nikkei 225 gained 3.45 points or 0.02% to 22,914.66, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI added 8.15 points or 0.46% to 1,779.91, Shanghai Composite strengthen 15.85 points or 0.48% to 3,291.63, Hang Seng jumped 167.24 points or 0.57% to 29,764.90, KOSPI Index rose 22.98 points or 0.94% to 2,459.65, Taiwan Weighted spurt 55.91 points or 0.53% to 10,542.58, and Straits Times was up by 10.13 points or 0.30% to 3,401.80.
On the flip side, Jakarta Composite was down by 0.3 points to 6,276.87.