Asian stocks are rising after the Fed chairman belittles a bigger rate hike Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) – Asian stock markets rose on Thursday following Wall Street after the chairman of the Federal Reserve downgraded the likelihood of higher rates after the largest growth by the US Federal Reserve in two decades.

The markets of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Australia and Southeast Asia developed. Markets in Japan and South Korea were closed for the holidays.

The base index of the S&P 500 on Wall Street rose 3% on Wednesday on the best day in two years after the Fed raised the key interest rate by half a percentage point or twice, but its chairman Jerome Powell said the US Federal Reserve “is not actively considers ”a larger increase.

The Fed’s rate hike and Powell’s comments “demonstrate that the Fed continues to try to arrange a soft landing while battling high inflation,” David Chao of Invesco said in a report.

The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.7% to 3,068.10, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.4% to 20,949.22.

The Sydney S&P-ASX 200 rose 0.6% to 7349.60. New Zealand and Singapore also won.

The Fed has raised its key rate to a range of 0.75% to 1%, the highest since the coronavirus pandemic two years ago.

Powell’s comments seemed to allay fears that the Fed, which has been accused of reacting too slowly to inflation last year, could aim for an unusually large rate increase of three-quarters of a percentage point at its June meeting.

Investors are worried about whether the Fed will be able to suppress inflation without pushing the economy into recession.

The Fed has announced details of how it will begin to reduce its Treasury loans and mortgage securities. The central bank buys bonds to pump money into the financial system and lower long-term interest rates.

Powell said the U.S. economy could survive the rate hike without falling into recession.

“The economy is strong and has a good position for tighter monetary policy,” Powell said. “It won’t be easy.”

The S&P 500 on Wall Street rose to 4,300.17. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 2.8% to 34,061.06. The Nasdaq index rose 3.2% to 12,964.86.

About 85% of the shares of the S&P 500 rose. Most of the profits came from technology companies. Apple rose 4.1%.

Energy reserves were among the biggest gains after Europe came one step closer to imposing an embargo on Russian oil in response to Moscow’s war against Ukraine. The embargo will push oil prices to higher, which will give unexpected returns to other suppliers. Exxon Mobil went up by 4%.

On Thursday at electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, U.S. benchmark oil rose 38 cents to $ 108.19 a barrel. On Wednesday, the contract jumped from $ 5.40 to $ 107.81. Brent crude, the base price of international oil, rose in London by 52 cents to $ 110.66 a barrel. Over the previous session, it rose $ 5.17 to $ 110.14.

The dollar rose to 129.14 yen from 128.87 yen on Wednesday. The euro rose to $ 1.0623 from $ 1.0613.

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