Beijing, July 14 (BNA): Asian stock markets rose on Thursday after rising inflation in the United States raised expectations of more interest rate hikes that investors fear would affect economic growth.
Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney advanced. Wall Street futures fell. Oil prices rose.
Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 lost 0.4% on Wednesday after data showed US consumer inflation accelerated to 9.1% in June from a year earlier from 8.6% in May. The Associated Press (AP) reported that this was despite three interest rate hikes this year by the Federal Reserve.
Investors are concerned that aggressive measures by the Federal Reserve and other central banks to cool four-decade-high inflation could derail global growth.
“Growth fears are hitting markets harder than inflation fears,” Stephen Innes of SBI Asset Management said in a report.
The Shanghai Composite rose 0.4% to 3,295.83 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 0.3% to 20,855.29.
The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo rose 0.8% to 26689.95. Panasonic Holdings Inc. rose 1.1% after the battery maker announced plans to build a multibillion-dollar plant to supply Tesla and other automakers in Kansas.
India’s Sensex rose 0.4% to 53701.38. New Zealand and Jakarta advanced while Singapore and Bangkok retreated.
The Federal Reserve, the central banks of Britain, South Korea, and some other countries raised interest rates to cool high rates. The European Central Bank has similar plans.
Traders anticipate another Fed rate hike this month, possibly matching last month’s 0.75 percentage point rise, the largest in 28 years and three times the usual margin.
Fed officials say a recession is possible but not certain. They point to the strength of the US labor market despite rising borrowing costs.
On Wall Street, the S&P fell to 3,801.78. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7% to 30,772.79, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.2% to 11247.58.
Traders are looking forward to the latest quarterly results from the major US companies in the next few weeks.
In energy markets, benchmark US crude rose 56 cents to $96.86 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 46 cents to $96.30 on Wednesday. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trade, rose 70 cents to $100.27 a barrel in London. It added 8 cents in the previous session to $99.57 a barrel.
The dollar rose to 138.37 yen from 137.32 yen on Wednesday. The euro fell to $1.0024 from $1.0062.
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