JOE MCDONALD
Asian stock markets were mixed Wednesday after Wall Street hit a 15-month high ahead of what traders hope will be the Federal Reserve’s final increase in this interest rate cycle.
Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul declined. Tokyo and Sydney advanced. Oil prices retreated.
Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index rose 0.3% on Tuesday after companies reported bigger profits than expected.
On Wednesday, investors expect the Fed to raise its key lending rate by 0.25 percentage points to a 22-year high. They hope the U.S. central bank can manage a “soft landing,” extinguishing inflation while avoiding a recession.
“This could be the last rate hike for the Fed” as inflation pressures ease, Brad Bernstein of UBS Wealth Management said in a report. Bernstein said central banks in Europe and Japan also are “near their pivot points” on their own rate hike cycles.
Meanwhile, traders waited to see how China’s
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