How to Profit from Asia's Negative Reaction to Bernanke Press Conference (EWV, JPX, EWS, EWH)

Most Asian stock markets ended Thursday trading slightly down, following the Wednesday press conference of the United States Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Although most of what Bernanke had to say was unsurprising, many Asian investors may have found alarming his admission that the Federal Reserve wasn't sure why America's economic growth rate continued to disappoint. Bernanke said during the press conference that there was a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the United States' economic slowdown and that more time was needed in order to make policy decisions that would lead to economic growth. Although Bernanke didn't drop any bombshells during his press conference, most Asian stock market indexes fell because the export-driven Asian economies will suffer if the American economy continues to languish. The NIKKEI 225 index of Japanese stocks was down 32.69, or 0.34%, to 9,596.74 by the end of trading in Tokyo. Although Japanese stocks were able to briefly move into positive territory during morning and afternoon trading, they spent most of Thursday below the previous trading day's closing level. The TSEC weighted index of Taiwanese stocks was down 53.76, or 0.62%, at 8,567.28. The index of stocks trading on the Taipei stock exchange opened the day lower than the previous trading day's closing level of 8,621.04 and remained in negative territory for the remainder of the day. The Hang Seng Index of Hong Kong traded stocks ended Thursday down 100.83, or 0.46%, at 21,759.14. Although the index of Hong Kong stocks was down for most of the day, it began climbing higher during late afternoon trading, briefly moving into positive territory before falling back into negative territory during the last hour of trading at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Bucking the downtrend for Asian stock markets was the SSE Composite Index of stocks traded on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in China. The index of Chinese traded stocks was up 38.27, or 1.44%, at 2,687.59 by the end of the Thursday trading session in Shanghai. A report by HSBC stated that Chinese manufacturing activity has slowed down and that demand is cooling. This may lead to the Chinese government backing off of its tightening measures, which should lead to increasing growth for the Chinese economy. Investors who feel that the U.S. economy won't be picking up steam any time soon may want to take a look at the ProShares UltraShort MSCI Japan EWV and the ProShares UltraShort MSCI Pacific JPX ETFs. If the American economy continues to falter, Asian stocks might fall even further and these two ETFs provide a simple way to short a broad range of Asian stocks. Although many of the Asian economies still depend on the American market, trade between Asian economies continues to grow. Investors who feel that low economic growth in the United States will have less of an impact on Asian economies in the future may want to consider investing in the iShares MSCI Singapore Index Fund EWS or the iShares MSCI Hong Kong Index Fund EWH. Both of these ETFs stand to gain if trading between Asian economies grows to the extent that the American export market becomes less important to Asian businesses.