Asia markets were mostly higher in early Thursday trade following the Federal Reserve’s decision to leave interest rates unchanged and ahead of a slew of corporate earnings.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index edged down 0.07 percent while South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.52 percent in early trade.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was moderately higher, trading up by 0.28 percent early in the session. Most sub-indexes were in the green, with the materials sub-index leading the gains and rising 0.95 percent.

Markets digested the Federal Reserve’s widely expected decision to hold interest rates steady at the end the Federal Open Market Committee’s two-day policy meeting Wednesday.

While the Fed laid the groundwork to soon begin winding down its massive stimulus program, investors honed in on the committee’s choice of language on when the move to trim the central bank’s balance sheet would kick off.

Normalization of the balance sheet would be implemented “relatively soon,” the post meeting statement noted. This was a slight tweak compared to the Fed’s use of “this year” after the June meeting.

The dollar sold off in reaction to the statement. The dollar index, which tracks the U.S. note against a basket of six major currencies, traded as low as 93.370 in the overnight session after trading around the 94 handle earlier on Wednesday. The index traded at 93.491 at 8:05 a.m. HK/SIN.

Against the Japanese currency, the greenback was mostly flat at 111.07 yen.

Yields of the 10-year Treasury bill also edged down following the news. The 10-year yield last stood at 2.29 percent after trading at an overnight high of 2.336 percent, according to National Australia Bank.

In corporate news, Samsung Electronics announced record quarterly profits of 14.1 trillion won ($12.68 billion) on Thursday. The amount was roughly in line with the company’s own guidance of 14 trillion won and marked a 73 percent rise compared to the year before, Reuters said. Shares of the company rose 1.24 percent.

Other market movers included Japan’s Nintendo, which announced better-than-expected earnings Wednesday. The consumer electronics firm reported operating profits of 16.21 billion yen ($144.95 million) compared to forecasts of 9.52 billion yen. Nintendo shares were up 4.25 percent in early trade.

A slew of corporate earnings are expected on Thursday, including Japan’s Nissan and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust, Hong Kong’s Hang Lung Properties, South Korea’s LG Electronics, and Singapore’s OCBC.

On the energy front, oil prices took a breather after trading near their highest levels in two months overnight. Brent crude edged down 0.2 percent to trade at $50.87 a barrel and U.S. crude slipped 0.14 percent to trade at $48.68 a barrel.

The rise in oil prices in the previous session came on the back of a larger-than-expected decline in U.S. crude inventories, which was reported Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration.

In other currencies, the Australian dollar traded at $0.8000 at 8:03 a.m. HK/SIN on dollar weakness. That was a tad lower than the high of $0.8012 hit in the overnight session.

On the economic calendar, China industrial profits for June were expected at about 9:30 a.m. HK/SIN.

On Wall Street, equities were mostly higher at the close on the back of solid corporate results.

— CNBC’s Jeff Cox contributed to this report.