Asian markets were mixed Monday and oil fell as investors assessed data showing China’s economy and comments from Federal Reserve officials showing it was wedded to its campaign of interest rate hikes to fight inflation.
A strong set of earnings from Wall Street titans Amazon and Apple helped US markets end last week with healthy gains and eased concerns about the impact on consumers of surging inflation and rising borrowing costs.That came after investors took Fed chief Jerome Powell’s post-policy-meeting comments Wednesday as indicating the bank could start to slow down its pace of monetary tightening, providing a much-needed boost to stocks.— AFP
