• Asian markets were mostly lower Wednesday after overnight losses on Wall Street. A global stock benchmark provider's decision to add mainland China-listed shares to its widely followed stock indexes did little to boost risk appetite as the decision was widely expected.
• Japan's Nikkei share average fell on Wednesday as a stronger yen sapped risk appetite, while mining stocks underperformed as oil prices tumbled.
The Nikkei fell 0.5 percent to 20,138.79 points, moving away from near two-year highs marked the previous day.
• China stocks edged up only slightly on Wednesday as investors gave a lukewarm reception to a move by index provider MSCI to add some mainland shares to one of its key benchmarks, with traders saying a "Yes" decision had already been priced in.
China's blue-chip CSI300 index rose 0.5 per cent to 3,564.62 points by the lunch break, while the Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.2 per cent to 3,144.71.
• Hong Kong stocks were hit by the news, amid concerns that an increasingly open, and internationally recognized China market threaten to weaken the city's role as a proxy destination for China-bound investment.
The Hang Seng index dropped 0.6 percent to 25,700.44 points, while the Hong Kong China Enterprises Index lost 0.5 percent to 10,413.54.
• U.S. index provider MSCI said on Tuesday it would add mainland Chinese stocks to one of its key benchmarks, but shocked many emerging market investors by failing to upgrade Argentina from the frontier market category where it has languished in recent years.
The full inclusion of domestic Chinese stocks in the widely tracked MSCI Emerging Markets Index .MSCIEF could pull more than $400 billion of funds from asset managers, pension funds and insurers into mainland China's equity markets over the next decade, according to analysts.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
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