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HONG KONG (AP) — Asian markets were mostly higher Wednesday ahead of expected guidance from the Federal Reserve on when to cut interest rates.
Oil prices and US futures fell.
Japanese markets were closed for the holiday. On Tuesday, the Bank of Japan raised the base interest rate For the first time in 17 years, the rate was raised from -0.1% to a range of zero to 0.1%.
The U.S. dollar strengthened against the Japanese yen after the Bank of Japan’s decision suggested that interest rate differentials between the U.S. and Japan will remain in place for some time. The dollar rose to 151.43 yen from 150.87 yen, trading at a four-month high.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.2% to 16,559.77, while the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.5% to 3,076.67.
China kept its benchmark lending rate unchanged on Wednesday, as expected. Although the economy is showing signs of improvement, the real estate market remains unstable.
Elsewhere, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.3% to 7,725.40, South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.1% to 2,685.87 and Taiwan’s Taiex rose 0.1%.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.6% to 5,178.51, surpassing its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.8% to $39,110.76, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.4% to $16,166.79.
International Paper rose 11%, the biggest gain in the S&P 500, after the company named Andrew Silvernail, an executive at investment firm KKR, as its new CEO.
Unilever’s U.S.-traded shares rose 2.8% after the company made the announcement. Ben & Jerry’s spinoff It also downsized its ice cream business, cutting 7,500 jobs.
Nvidia went from a nearly 4% decline to a 1.1% gain.
Wall Street’s loser was Super Micro Computer, whose stock price soared from less than $100 to more than $1,000 in one year. The company, which sells servers and storage systems used in AI and other computing, fell 9% after it said it was considering selling 2 million shares of its stock.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, the focus was on the Federal Reserve.
The Fed begins its latest meeting on interest rates on Tuesday and is expected to announce a decision later in the day. There are widespread expectations that key interest rates will be left unchanged at the highest level in 20 years. The bank is expected to signal that it expects to cut interest rates three times this year, as it hinted several months ago.
The record rally in U.S. stocks is driven in part by hopes of lower interest rates, which will ease pressure on the economy and financial system.But recently report upon inflation have consistently is coming in worse than expected. That could force the Fed to say it will cut rates less this year, and traders have already given up early hopes that the first rate cut of the year will come on Wednesday.
Bank of America strategists expect Fed officials to stick to their outlook, which shows the median member expects three rate cuts in 2024. But it’s a close call, and strategists led by Mark Kavanagh say “risks are skewed toward fewer signals to cut rates.”
In other trading, benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 16 cents to $82.57 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude oil, the international standard, fell 13 cents to $87.25 per barrel.
The euro rose to $1.0869 from $1.0865.
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