Asia stocks echo Wall Street rally as inflation report looms
TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mostly higher Wednesday, boosted by a rally on Wall Street that came ahead of some potentially market-moving reports due later in the week.
The weak yen also piqued buying sentiment in Japan, as that boosts the earnings of the nation's exporters when converting overseas profits into yen.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 1.0% to finish at 26,446.00. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.9% to 7,195.30. South Korea's Kospi edged up 0.4% to 2,359.53. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.4% to 21,408.65, while the Shanghai Composite dipped 0.2% to 3,161.84.
Shares of Fast Retailing Co., which operates the popular Japanese Uniqlo clothing retailer, rose 1.4% in morning trading after the company announced that it was raising the salaries of its workers by up to 40%.
The move is aimed at “greatly strengthening its investment in personnel, remunerating each and every employee appropriately for their ambition and talents, as well as increasing the company’s growth potential and competitiveness in line with global standards,” the company said in a statement.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 0.7% to 3,919.25 after drifting between small gains and losses through the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.6% to 33,704.10, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1% to 10,742.63.
The stock market has had a positive start to 2023 helped by hopes that cooling inflation and a slowing economy may convince the Federal Reserve to ease off its markets-shaking hikes to interest rates. Since early last year, the Fed has been raising rates at a furious pace to bring painful inflation under control. Such moves risk causing a recession and hurt investment prices.
Investors were hoping for some clues about where the Fed is heading from its chair, Jerome Powell, who...