Asia follows sluggish Wall St as Fed hints another rate hike

Asian stocks followed Wall Street lower Thursday after notes from a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting dented hopes interest rate hikes are finished. Hong Kong and Tokyo lost more than 1 per cent. Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney also retreated. Oil prices declined. Asian stocks followed Wall Street lower Thursday after notes from a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting dented hopes interest rate hikes are finished. Hong Kong and Tokyo lost more than 1 per cent. Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney also retreated. Oil prices declined. Asian stocks followed Wall Street lower Thursday after notes from a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting dented hopes interest rate hikes are finished. Hong Kong and Tokyo lost more than 1 per cent. Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney also retreated. Oil prices declined.

Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 lost 0.8 per cent on Wednesday after minutes from the Fed’s latest meeting suggested board members are unsure what to do after raising their key lending rate to a two-decade high. Traders had hoped they would decide inflation was under control and last month’s rate hike was the last. Fed officials face a “tough balancing act” between “the risk of an inadvertent over-tightening of policy against the cost of an insufficient one,” said Tan Boon Heng of Mizuho Bank in a report. The Shanghai Composite Index sank 0.4 per cent to 3,136.17 and the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo retreated 1.2 per cent to 31,379.24. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 1.6 per cent to 18,018.20 after being down more than 2 per cent in early trading. The Kospi in Seoul shed 0.9 per cent to 2,502.75 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 declined 0.8 per cent to 7,135.70. New Zealand and Southeast Asian markets retreated.