Asian stocks trade mixed before NFP report

Asian markets were trading in mixed directions on Thursday, with Japan outperforming while Chinese and Australian stocks sank ahead of tomorrow's all-important US non-farm payrolls report.

Investors got an insight into Friday's non-farm payrolls report overnight with the release of the Automatic Data Processing (ADP) employment figures, which showed 185,000 job gains for July, missing the expected gain of 216,000.

The Indian market has opened flat with a positive bias. The Sensex gained 23.31 points at 28246.39 and the Nifty rose 5.75 points to 8573.70.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 0.83% to 20,785.12 points in morning trade, while Tokyo's broader Topix gauge rallied 1.15% to 1,685.54 points.

Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng index fell 0.55% to 24,379.11 points at the opening bell, and mainland China's benchmark Shanghai Composite plunged 1.31% to 3,647.75 points at the same time.

Korea's benchmark Kospi index inched up 0.18% to 2,033.37 points this morning in Seoul.

The benchmark Australian S&P/ASX 200 index traded 0.78% lower at 5,629.60 points in Sydney, with Australia's biggest lenders suffering sharp losses early on in the trading day.

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index rose 0.22% to 5,951.79 points this afternoon in Wellington.