Asian markets: China Shanghai Composite slips after Bank of Japan keeps monetary policy steady

While the Asian stock market indices were trading in a mixed pattern on Thursday, 28 April, China's Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.88% at 2,927.71 as of 5.48am GMT. This followed the decision by the two central banks, namely the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) to keep its interest rates unchanged.

Investors were happy with the decision taken by the US Fed overnight even though the central bank said it would keep the door open for an increase in rates in its June policy meeting. However, investors were disappointed with the decision of BOJ, as they were expecting the central bank to announce further stimulus.

Shingo Ide, chief equity strategist for the NLI Research Institute said, "The stock market was disappointed about the BOJ decision, and now Japanese stock prices are going down. The stock market will search the bottom level of their price today."

Hideyuki Ishiguro, senior strategist at Daiwa Securities, opined that BOJ "might have been ready to act if the Federal Open Market Committee outcome overnight had pointed to a June rate increase, New York stocks had fallen sharply and other global markets had destabilized."

Indices in the rest of Asia traded as follows on 28 April at 6.02am GMT:

Meanwhile, overnight (27 April), the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 18,041.55, up 0.28%, while the FTSE 100 closed higher by 0.56% at 6,319.91.

Among commodities, oil prices consolidated after hitting a 2016 peak. On 28 April, WTI crude oil was trading 0.64% lower at $45.04 (£30.93, €39.70) a barrel, while Brent was 0.57% lower at $46.91 a barrel at 6.09 am GMT.