Asian stocks mixed post-Fed open, wary eyes on yen

Asian equities were varied after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to a 22-year high and indicated that further tightening would be “data dependent.”

Stocks in Japan fluctuated while those in South Korea and Australia gained. Hong Kong stocks futures rose, along with an index of US-listed Chinese stocks.

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s shares gained after the company reported earnings for the second quarter that beat estimates, another signal that global tech spending is beginning to climb out of a post-Covid funk. Samsung’s results came a day after smaller rival SK Hynix Inc. reported better-than-expected sales.

US stock futures edged slightly higher after stocks rebounded Wednesday from session lows, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average notching its 13th straight advance — the longest winning run since 1987.

The dollar and yields on the two-year Treasury steadied after the latter dropped in the previous session on the Fed’s rate decision. The yen inched lower as traders await the Bank of Japan’s policy decision on Friday and any hint of a shift in its yield-curve control policy.

There was something for both bulls and bears in Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks, but the market finished the US session betting the central bank’s next move would possibly be a skip.

Swaps referencing future Fed decisions priced in slightly lower odds of another increase this year, which ebbed to 47 percent. With US Fed officials fine-tuning their effort to further quell inflation, Powell said it was still “certainly possible” they hike again in September.

“With the Fed’s data dependent message and risks of a yield-curve control adjustment by the BOJ, we should see some moderate downward pressure on dollar-yen going into the BOJ meeting,” said Vassili Serebriakov, an FX and macro strategist at UBS in New York.

Kristina Clifton, a senior economist and strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, cautioned that dollar-yen could be volatile over the next few days.

In commodities, oil climbed and gold was little changed.