Asian shares mostly down after mixed US data

Asian markets were mostly down on Wednesday with Tokyo stocks reversing the previous session's surge, as investors weighed mixed data from the United States. The yen gained strength a day after the Bank of Japan (BoJ) decided to hold off fresh monetary easing measures and expand its lending to commercial banks. Tokyo’s headline share index fell 0.68 percent in the morning, Seoul lost 0.49 percent and Hong Kong was down 0.13 percent. Shanghai was flat while Sydney rose 0.27 percent. The BoJ announced Tuesday it would double the sum of loan schemes to banks in a bid to stimulate lending to firms and finance growth-stoking projects, such as environmental research and natural resources development. That helped Tokyo’s Nikkei index power 3.13 percent higher on Tuesday, before profit-taking set in on Wednesday morning. Hideyuki Ishiguro, senior investment strategist at Okasan Securities, said he did not expect larger falls on Wednesday as the central bank's move was likely to discourage investors to bet against Japanese stocks too heavily, according to AFP.