Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Tuesday after a US holiday and attention turned to the US Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, Japanese Nikkei share average dropped, as investors wasted no time to lock in profits from the previous day’s rally, while such financial shares as banks and insurers underperformed. Among the other Asian markets, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore are lower. Bucking the trend, Hong Kong is in positive territory. Markets in China and Taiwan remain closed for the Lunar New Year holidays.
Nikkei 225 dipped 203.54 points or 0.92% to 21,945.67, Jakarta Composite dropped 41.4 points or 0.62% to 6,647.89, KOSPI Index decreased 16.75 points or 0.69% to 2,426.07, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI declined 0.75 points or 0.04% to 1,856.57, and Straits Times was down by 7.00 points or 0.20% to 3,480.88.
On the flip side, Hang Seng was up by 36.22 points or 0.12% to 31,151.65.
