Asian Markets trade mostly lower in early deals on Wednesday

17 Feb 2021 Evaluate
Most of Asian equity benchmarks traded lower in early deals on Wednesday, in tandem with the lacklustre cues from Wall Street overnight and on profit booking after the stocks went bullish on optimism with the world getting back to normalcy amid reduced corona cases and faster vaccine rollout. Japan’s Nikkei eased after two day gains in a row, after the country posted lower than expected  merchandise trade deficit of 323.9 billion yen in January, beating forecasts for a shortfall of 600 billion yen following the 751 billion yen surplus in December. The stock market of China remain closed for the Lunar New Year holidays. Among the other Asian markets, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia are in negative trend. Bucking the trend, Hong Kong and Taiwan traded higher.

Nikkei 225 down by 163.78 points or 0.54% to 30,303.97, Straits Times dipped by 13.57 points or 0.46% to 2,921.77,  KOSPI Index declined 35.37 points or 1.12% to 3,127.88, Jakarta Composite lower by 68.38  points or 1.09% to 6,224.02, and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI dipped by 8.87 points 0.55% to 1,597.27.

On the flip side, Hang Seng increased by 188.62 points or 0.61% to 30,935.28 and Taiwan Weighted higher 558.32 points or 3.53% to 16,360.72.

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