ASIA MARKET OPEN | Tokyo's Nikkei Jumps at Open on Chip Strength as Hong Kong Slips After Fed's First Hike Since 2023

According to Kabutan, the Korea Herald and HKET, Asian equities opened mixed on Thursday after the Federal Reserve delivered its first rate increase in more than three years, lifting its benchmark by a quarter point to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%. Wall Street closed lower overnight, with the Dow down 1.2%. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 opened up 720 points at 64,643, its first return above 64,000 in two days, helped by strength in U.S. chip shares and a pullback in oil. Shipping and other cyclicals led the advance at the open. By early trade the index had pared some gains, quoted around 64,348.64, up 425.64 or 0.67%. Seoul's KOSPI opened higher despite the Fed move, rising 6.49 points, or 0.1%, to 6,724.46 as of 9:14 a.m. local time, led by tech. Samsung Electronics added 0.3% while SK hynix shed 0.8%; LG Energy Solution dipped 0.82%, KB Financial rose 1.47% and Hanwha Aerospace gained 1.14%. Kiwoom Securities analyst Han Ji-young said local stocks are likely to face volatility as investors digest the hawkish FOMC meeting. Hong Kong stocks opened lower, with the Hang Seng Index down 233 points at 24,480 on turnover of HK$3.14 billion, while the Hang Seng Tech Index fell 1% to 4,281. Tencent, Alibaba, HSBC and AIA each fell more than 1%; Lenovo bucked the trend to rise 0.6%, Zhipu climbed more than 2% and MiniMax added more than 1%. Hong Kong's Monetary Authority raised its base rate by 25 basis points to 4.25%, tracking the Fed. Taiwan's TAIEX opened up more than 1%, led by TSMC, which at one point drove the index up more than 860 points to retake its monthly moving average. As of 09:38 UTC+8, TSMC traded at NT$2,440.00, up 2.52%; MediaTek at NT$4,670.00, up 3.09%; and Hon Hai at NT$252.50, up 1.81%. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite and the other three main indexes opened lower together, with power and shipping stocks bucking the trend while gold, oil and gas, petrochemical and non-ferrous metal names retreated.