Asian stocks rise after Wall St slides on rate hike fears

BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets rose Thursday following Wall Street's biggest one-day decline in two months after notes from a Federal Reserve meeting showed officials expect to keep U.S. interest rates high to fight stubborn inflation.

Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul advanced. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday. Oil prices gained.

Wall Street sank Wednesday after notes from the Federal Reserve's latest board meeting showed members expect “ongoing increases” in its key lending rate to slow the economy. That dampened hopes that cuts might start as early as late this year.

“The need for ‘higher for longer’ rates was made plain," said Vishnu Varathan of Mizuho Bank in a report.

The Shanghai Composite Index gained less than 0.1% to 3,293.37 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong advanced 0.5% to 20,534.79.

The Kospi in Seoul rose 1.1% to 2,445.21 while Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 shed 0.4% to 7,285.70.

India's Sensex opened up 0.2% at 59,871.58. New Zealand and Jakarta advanced while Singapore and Bangkok declined.

Global stock prices have been declining on worries inflation might not be cooling as quickly or smoothly as traders hoped.

Traders worry the Fed and other central banks might be willing to push the world into recession to extinguish inflation that has stuck near multi-decade highs despite sharp rate hikes over the past year.

Traders have begun calling off bets the Fed might cut rates late this year. They expect at least two more increases by the Fed of 0.25 percentage points. Some think the U.S. central bank might go back to using unusually large increases of double that margin.

The Fed's key lending rate stands at 4.50% to 4.75%, up from close to zero a year ago. It has said it expects no cuts this year.

The Fed minutes showed “a few” officials preferred to...