Asian Stock Markets Close With Mixed Performance On Thursday

Major stock markets in Asia closed mostly with gains on Thursday following the US Federal Reserve's minutes.

The US Federal Reserve's minutes from its Sept. 21-22 meeting showed on Wednesday that it could start tapering -- the process of reducing its $120 billion in monthly asset purchases -- as early as mid-November.

The central bank, however, left the door open to begin tapering in mid-December, which would provide markets an additional month of liquidity.

According to the data released on Wednesday in the US, the consumer price index (CPI) rose 5.4% year-on-year, its highest level in 13 years.

The Asia Dow, which includes blue-chip companies in the region, climbed 22.4 points, or 0.58%, to 3,896 at 0930GMT.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 surged by 410.7 points, or 1.46%, to 28,550 on Thursday.

The Singapore index rose 11.30 points, or by 0.36%, to 3,167, and the Indian Sensex benchmark gained 525.2, or 0.86%, to 61,262.

The Hang Seng, the benchmark for blue-chip stocks trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange, slipped by 362.5 points, or 1.43%, to 24,962.

China's Shanghai stock exchange was also in negative territory, falling by 3.48 points, or 0.10%, to 3,558 points, following the inflation figure released on Thursday.

China's CPI rose 0.7% year-on-year in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday. The country's producer price index jumped at its fastest pace ever with 10.7% during the same period. -