The Bank of Japan headquarters is seen in Tokyo on January 30, 2017. The Bank of Japan will pull the plug on its eight-year negative interest rate policy in April, according to more than 80% of economists polled by Reuters, marking a long-awaited major shift from a global outlier central bank.
Kazuhiro Nogi | Afp | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets were mixed in choppy trading Thursday, as investors assessed the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by a half-percentage point.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 and the broad-based Topix were up over 2%. The Japanese yen weakened 1.13% to 143.89 against the U.S. dollar.
The Fed lowered its benchmark borrowing rate by a half percentage point, bringing its target range to 4.75% to 5%.
In lockstep with the Fed, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority cut its interest rate by 50 basis points to 5.25, as the city’s currency is pegged to the greenback.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index seesawed back and forth and was last trading flat.
Mainland China’s CSI 300 was 0.02% lower.
South Korea’s blue-chip Kospi slipped 0.51% after opening higher, while the small-cap Kosdaq was down 0.4%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.15%.
New Zealand’s GDP for the second quarter contracted by 0.2% from the previous quarter, according to the official data released Thursday morning, less than Reuters poll estimates of a 0.4% decline.
Bank of Japan is poised to kick off a two-day meeting ending Friday, where the central bankers will make a key rate decision, after the central bank ended its decades-long ultra-low interest rates regime earlier this year.
Investors in Asia also assessed unemployment numbers from Australia, and awaited central bank decisions in the region.
Australia’s national unemployment rate remained steady in August at 4.2%, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics, in line with Reuters-polled analysts’ expectation.
Taiwan’s central bank is set to make a key rate decision Thursday, and release its revised economic growth and inflation forecasts for this year.
The Taiwan Weighted Index edged 0.07% higher.
Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes fell, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.25% to 41,503.1, while the S&P 500 fell 0.29% to end at 5,618.26. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.31% to 17,573.3.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 surged to fresh highs during intraday trading before reversing course to close lower.
—CNBC’s Hakyung Kim and Samantha Subin contributed to this report.