Hong Kong stocks led losses in the Asia-Pacific market on Wednesday as inflation in Australia surged and investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s policy decision.
During the opening hours of trading, the Hang Seng and Hang Seng Tech indices both declined by roughly 1% each. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was 1.28% lower at 9.33 hrs. local time in Thailand, while dropped 1.53%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 index was slightly lower, losing by 0.08%.
South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.52%.
Meanwhile, Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite and Nikkei 225 in Japan were on positive note.
In the second quarter of the year, prices in Australia soared by 6.1% compared to the same period last year, up from 5.1% in the first quarter. According to Reuters’ poll of economists, inflation would reach 6.2%.
The market’s expectations for future rate hikes could be influenced by Australia’s CPI figure, according to Commonwealth Bank of Australia economist Kristina Clifton.
“We expect that any impacts on the AUD from today’s CPI will be short lived because the darkening global outlook will put a greater weight on AUD,” she wrote.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday downgraded its forecast for the global economy this year and next year due to rising inflation in the US and China. It now anticipates this year’s growth to be 3.2%, which is 0.4% lower than its April forecast.
