International Business: Asia stocks up but investors worry about rate hikes, China lockdowns – Gulf Digital News

International Business: Asia stocks up but investors worry about rate hikes, China lockdowns – Gulf Digital News

Asia stocks rose on Wednesday even as central banks piled into aggressive rate hikes to battle soaring inflation and left investors worried about slower global growth.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.72%, with Australian shares up 0.72%, Seoul adding 0.84% and Taiwan advancing 1.07%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng and China's main indexes also traded higher, while Japan's Nikkei share average slipped 0.04%.

European markets also looked set for a firmer open, with pan-European futures up 0.93% and FTSE 100 futures rising 0.88%.

The US dollar index =USD - which measures the currency against six major rivals - rebounded 0.16% to 101.92, a level not seen since April 26. Meanwhile the kiwi hit a three-week high of $0.65 after the New Zealand central bank raised rates by an aggressive 50 basis points and signalled more to come.

Overnight, Wall Street reeled from weak housing and manufacturing data, while U.S. central bankers backed two more big interest rate hikes as early as June and July to fight 40-year-high inflation.

The Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.35% and the S&P 500 lost 0.81%.

New home sales in the US fell 16.6% month-on-month in April, the largest decline in nine years, sending US Treasuries yields down to one-month lows