All of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading in the red terrain in early deals on Thursday, as sentiments remained dampened after US Federal Reserve announced plans to scale back its bond purchases by another $10 billion to $65 billion a month. Back on regional turf, weak data on Chinese manufacturing activity too hurt sentiments to a notable extent. The Markit/HSBC final manufacturing PMI for January dipped to 49.5 from December's 50.5, the first deterioration in six months. Japanese Nikkei too declined by over two and a half percent, with investors indulging in heavy selling across the board. On the economic front, overall retail sales in Japan rose 2.6 percent on year in December, which missed forecasts for an increase of 3.9 percent following the upwardly revised 4.1 percent gain in the previous month.
Shanghai Composite dropped 9.84 points or 0.48% to 2,040.08, Hang Seng shed 106.19 points or 0.48% to 22,035.42, Jakarta Composite contracted 38.99 points or 0.88% to 4,378.36, KLSE Composite slipped 0.32 points or 0.02% to 1,788.91, Nikkei 225 declined 386.58 points or 2.51% to 14,997.33 and Straits Times was down by 27.90 points or 0.92% to 3,020.03.
Markets in South Korea and Taiwan are closed for national holidays.
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