Asia: Most stocks higher, China slides following poor industrial data

Asian stocks were mostly higher on Wednesday ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy decision in the US.

The Nikkei-225 was up 0.15% helped by a weaker yen. The Japanese currency weakened against the dollar to ¥117.69 from yesterday's ¥118.06.

Stocks were also driven by strong results from Apple and Yahoo's announcement.

Apple reported a massive 30% year-on-year increase in quarterly sales to $74.6bn and posted a record quarterly net profit of $18bn.

Results from Yahoo were also welcomed by investors in after-hours trade, along with the announcement that it will spin-off its $40bn stake in Chinese ecommerce firm Alibaba.

However, the Shanghai stock exchange's main index fell again, by 1.41%, after data on Tuesday showed industrial profits dropped 8% year-on-year in December compared to -4.2% the month before. This was the biggest decrease since 2011.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.22% and Australia's ASX rose 0.1% thanks to better-than-expected inflation data.

The Reserve Bank of Australia's trimmed mean gauge of core prices rose 0.7% during the last quarter, compared to a rise of 0.3% in the previous period. Forecasts were for an increase of 0.5%.

However, the consumer price index fell to 1.7% year-on-year from 2.3% same time last year, worse than expectations of 1.8% growth. This was driven by a 7% drop in the price of petrol during the quarter. Petrol prices were down to $1.17 a litre, the lowest since 2009.