Stock market today: Asian shares are mixed ahead of the Fed’s decision on interest rates

By ELAINE KURTENBACH
AP Business Writer

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mixed on Wednesday ahead of a decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve on interest rates.

Benchmarks declined in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul but rose in Tokyo and Sydney. U.S. futures edged higher while oil prices slipped.

The Bank of Japan’s quarterly “tankan” report, released Wednesday, measured business sentiment among major manufacturers at plus 12, up from plus 9 in October and plus 5 in June. It was the third straight month of improvement.

The survey measures corporate sentiment by subtracting the number of companies saying business conditions are negative from those replying they are positive.

“The continued improvement in the ‘tankan’ suggests that the drop in Q3 GDP was just a blip, but we still expect GDP growth to slow sharply next year,” Marcel Thieliant of Capital Economics said in a commentary.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.3% to 32,926.35 and the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia was up 0.3% at 7,257.80.

Shares in China declined on what analysts said was disappointment over a lack of major stimulus measures from a major economic planning conference that ended on Tuesday.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.9% to 16,231.97 and the Shanghai Composite index was down 1.2% at 2,968.76. South Korea’s Kospi lost 1% to 2,510.66.

Taiwan’s Taiex edged 0.1% higher and Bangkok’s SET lost 1.1%.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 climbed 0.5% to just below its all-time high set in early 2022 following a report showing inflation in the United States is behaving pretty much as expected.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5% and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.7%.

Big Tech stocks helped lead the way following solid gains for Nvidia, Meta Platforms and some other of Wall Street’s largest and most influential stocks. They overshadowed a 12.4% tumble for Oracle, whose revenue for the latest quarter fell short of analysts’ forecasts.

Wall Street’s spotlight was on the inflation report, which showed U.S. consumers paid prices for gasoline, food and other living costs last month that were 3.1% higher overall than a year earlier. That was a slight deceleration from October’s 3.2% inflation and exactly in line with economists’ expectations.

The data likely changes nothing about what the Federal Reserve will do at its latest meeting on interest rates, which ends Wednesday. The widespread expectation is still for the Fed to keep its main interest rate steady.

The Fed has already yanked its main interest rate from virtually zero early last year to more than 5.25%, its highest level since 2001. It’s hoping to slow the economy and hurt investment prices by exactly the right amount: enough to stamp out high inflation but not so much that it causes a steep recession.

In other trading, a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude gave up 43 cents to $68.18 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Tuesday, it lost $2.71 to settle at $68.61.

It had been above $93 in September but has been falling amid worries that global demand may fall short of available supplies.

Brent crude, the international standard, slipped 45 cents to $72.79 per barrel. It fell $2.79 on Tuesday to $73.24 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar rose to 145.87 Japanese yen from 145.45 yen. The euro slipped to $1.0788 from $1.0793.