Asian Stocks Diverge as Divided Fed Leaves Global Stocks Guessing

Asian markets traded without clear direction on Thursday. Investors weighed a divided Federal Reserve decision against fresh volatility in South Korean equities. Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed nearly one percent, trading above 62,000.

South Korea’s KOSPI slipped about one percent, extending a stretch that has erased a large share of the index’s value since its June peak. A Divided Fed Leaves Rates Unclear The Fed voted 9 to 3 on Wednesday to hold its benchmark rate at 3.5% to 3.75%.

Three regional presidents, Cleveland’s Beth Hammack, Minneapolis’s Neel Kashkari and Dallas’s Lorie Logan, dissented in favor of a hike. The split marked the most contested vote of Chair Kevin Warsh’s short tenure.

Warsh again declined to signal the central bank’s next move, and that ambiguity pushed 30-year Treasury yields to their highest level since 2007. Traders responded by sending the Dow to its worst session in over a year. Bitcoin and gold, meanwhile, climbed on the split vote.