Investing.com - Asian shares were mostly weaker on Thursday following a widely expected Fed rate hike overnight with investors in Japan looking ahead to a central bank policy revie to conclude on Friday.
Japan's Nikkei 225 edged down 0.06%. Shares of Toshiba fell more than 5% at one point before recovering as some of Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC)'s SanDisk subsidiaries sought injunctive relief against it. Western Digital said it had "no choice" but to pursue legal action as Toshiba continued to "circumvent" contractual rights related to its memory joint ventures.
The Japanese conglomerate is also unlikely to meet the deadline for filing its annual financial statement, Nikkei reported.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 tumbled 1.13%, driven by weakness in its materials and energy sub-indexes. Markets in greater China were mixed, with the Hang Seng Index down 0.91% and the Shanghai Composite up 0.03%.
Overnight, U.S. stocks closed mixed on Wednesday, after the Federal Reserve increased interest rates and maintained its outlook of three rate hikes for 2017, despite recent economic data suggesting a slowdown in the U.S. economy.
The Federal Reserve increased its key interest rate by 0.25% to a 1-1.25% range on Wednesday, and surprised investors as it maintained its outlook of three total rate hikes for 2017.
The Federal Reserve said that gradual increases in interest rates remained appropriate as it expects economic growth to raise moderately.
The central bank said measures to trim its balance sheet would come into take effect this year provided that economic growth continues to expand as expected.
"The committee currently expects to begin implementing a balance sheet normalisation program this year, provided that the economy evolves broadly as anticipated," the Fed said in its statement.
The Federal Reserve's policy decision came a few hours after the release of a pair of economic reports showed a slowdown in both inflation and retail sales.
U.S. consumer prices, a measure of inflation, fell 0.1% in May, as a fall in energy prices, airline fares and apparel weighed on the pace of inflation, the labor department said. The measure of inflation missed forecasts of a 0.2% rise.
Meanwhile, core retail sales sustained their biggest drop in 16 months to 0.3%, according to the commerce department.
Fed chair Janet Yellen said in a press conference that the recent slowdown in inflation was transitory, resulting from a “one-off reduction" in certain categories of prices, adding that the committee expects inflation to move and stabilise around 2% over the next couple of years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed in record territory at 21,374.56. The S&P 500 lost 0.10% while the Nasdaq Composite closed at 6,194.89, down 0.41%.