Bangkok, Jul 22 (BNA): Asian stocks rose mostly on Friday after another day of gains on Wall Street amid a torrent of news about the economy, interest rates and corporate earnings.
Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney advanced while Seoul and Shanghai retreated. US futures fell while oil prices rose.
Japan reported a slower rate of inflation in June, with food prices rising 6.5% year-on-year compared to 12.3% in May and the increase in energy costs declining to 16.5% from 20.8%.
Core inflation, excluding volatile energy and food prices, rose to 2.6% from 2.2% in the previous month, according to the Associated Press.
The Bank of Japan indicated that unlike the Fed and other central banks, it does not intend to raise the benchmark interest rate which is below 0.1% to counter the trend since wages are not rising along with prices, limiting consumer demand.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.4% to 27924.97 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.1% to 20,598.98. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.2% to 6807.10.
In South Korea, Kospi fell 0.3% to 2402.72. The Shanghai Composite lost 0.3% to 3,261.12.
Much of the focus this week has been on Europe. The European Central Bank, as expected, chose to raise its key interest rate on Thursday, ending a year-long experiment with negative interest rates. It was her first increase in 11 years.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 Index rose 1% to 3,998.95 Thursday, returning to its highest level in six weeks. The Dow rose 0.5% to 32.036.90 and the Nasdaq rose 1.4% to 12059.61.
The Federal Reserve is set to raise interest rates next week for the fourth time this year, in an attempt once again to rein in high inflation without pushing the economy into recession. Some parts of the US economy have already begun to decline.
Strong earnings from major US companies drove gains on Wall Street this week.
Energy stocks also fell as the price of US crude oil settled down 3.5%. Early Friday, the price of benchmark US crude oil rose 85 cents to $97.20 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude, the basis for pricing international trade, rose 75 cents to $100.23 a barrel.
In currency trading, the US dollar bought 137.77 Japanese yen, up from 137.41 late Thursday. The euro fell to 1.0184 dollars from 1.0230 dollars.
insult