Asian shares mixed as focus turns to Federal Reserve meeting

Stocks are mixed in Asia as investors focus on the Federal Reserve policy meeting that ends Wednesday.

Shares rose in Hong Kong and Tokyo but fell in Seoul and Sydney. Shanghai was little changed.

The Fed is expected to keep its extremely supportive policy stance unchanged given the slow progress in vanquishing the pandemic, analysts said.

Markets have meandered since last week as investors weighed solid corporate earnings results against renewed worries that troubles with COVID-19 vaccine rollouts and the spread of new variants of coronavirus might delay a recovery from the pandemic.

With the virus spreading like “wildfire" in parts of the world, the first half of the year might be “lost," Stephen Innes of Axi said in a commentary. “ Some are even concerned that vaccines may not prove useful enough to eradicate the virus. And these concerns will continue to linger over markets like a dark cloud until vaccine distributions get ironed out, and a definitive drop in contagion levels can thoroughly support the vaccine efficacy results."

The reality that President Joe Biden’s $1.9 billion stimulus package won’t be “rubber stamped” by the U.S. Senate is also weighing on sentiment.

For now, “ranging is a summation of the state of play in the financial markets at the moment," Jeffrey Halley of Oanda said in a commentary.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index added 0.3% to 28,635.21, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong edged 0.1% higher to 29,429.26. The Kospi in South Korea sank 0.6% to 3,122.56, while the Shanghai Composite index was virtually unchanged, at 3,568.90. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.6% to 6,780.60.

Overnight, the S&P 500 lost 0.1% to 3,849.62 but was within 0.2% of the record high it set Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.1%, to...