Investors looked at the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s June meeting, which showed the central bank’s determination to fight inflation, and most stocks in Asia and the Pacific were up Thursday morning.
The Nikkei 225 had risen 1.24 percent (0.255 GMT) by 10:55 PM ET.
The KOSPI, in South Korea, went up by 1.73 percent.
In Australia, the ASX 200 rose 0.35 percent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 0.49 percent.
The Shanghai Composite went up 0.35 percent, and the Shenzhen Component went up 0.47 percent.
According to the minutes from the Fed’s June meeting, inflation that lasts for a long time could be stopped with a “even more restrictive” monetary policy. Now, investors expect the Fed to raise interest rates by another 75 basis points in July.
As monetary policies get tighter, investors are worried about rising prices and a bad outlook for the economy.
Mona Mahajan, a senior investment strategist at Edward Jones & Co., told Bloomberg that over the past two weeks, “all asset classes have been telling us the same thing, which is that growth is going to slow down.”
The number of job openings in the U.S. dropped slightly in May, but it was still close to a record. This shows that there is still a strong demand for workers.
In Asia-Pacific, the People’s Bank of China is expected to take money out of the financial system, which shows that it is moving toward normalising monetary policy.
In another place, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he will not quit as leader of the Conservatives and prime minister, even though some ministers have already done so.
