Stock Market Today: Asian Stocks Mixed, Chinese Stocks Down After Wall Street Pullback

TOKYO (AP) Asian stocks traded mixed Thursday as investor confidence in Tokyo was boosted by news of Nvidia's soaring profits.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index gained 1.1% to 39,054.81. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.5% to 7,807.10. South Korea's Kospi added 0.2% to 2,728.43. Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 1.3% to 18,942.77, while the Shanghai Composite lost 1.0% to 3,126.70.

Semiconductor woes were spurred by news that Nvidia's profits beat forecasts, with quarterly net profit rising more than seven-fold from a year earlier to $14.88 billion. of dollars. Revenue has more than tripled for what has become the iconic brand behind the recent artificial intelligence boom.

On Wall Street, indexes fell from record highs as concerns about high interest rates weighed on the market.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3% to 5,307.01, a day after hitting its last all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5% to 39,671.04, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.2% to 16,801.54 after setting its latest record.

The indexes were almost flat at the start of the day, but fell slightly after the Federal Reserve released the minutes of its latest policy meeting. They showed Fed officials that it would likely take longer than expected to fully bring inflation under control after disappointing numbers earlier this year.

And although Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said after that meeting that the Federal Reserve was more likely to cut rates than raise them, the minutes indicated that various participants were willing to raise rates if the inflation was getting worse. This drop has revived hopes on Wall Street that the Fed will be able to reduce its main interest rate at least once this year.

Lululemon Athletica fell 7.2% after announcing that its chief product officer, Sun Choe, was leaving the company this month to pursue another opportunity. The company announced a new organizational structure in which it will not replace the role of product manager.

On the bond market, the yield on 10-year Treasury bills increased to 4.42% from 4.41% Tuesday evening. The two-year yield, which is closer to Fed expectations, rose a bit more. It went from 4.84% to 4.87%.

The fact that the harsh words in the minutes of the last Fed meeting date back to May 1 helped to contain the movement in yields. That was before some reports showed a slowdown in inflation and parts of the U.S. economy, which may have changed. in the minds of some Fed officials.

In their recent speeches since the May 1 meeting, some Fed officials have indeed described these recent reports as encouraging. But they also said they would still need months of improving data before they could cut the federal funds rate, which is at its highest level in more than 20 years.

The Fed is trying to walk a tightrope by slowing the economy just enough through high interest rates to keep inflation in check, but not so much as to cause a serious recession.

High rates have made everything more expensive, from credit card bills to car loan payments. Mortgage rates are also high and a report released Wednesday showed that sales of previously occupied homes were weaker last month than economists expected.

Central banks around the world appear keen to cut interest rates, but they may not go far given healthy economies and still-high inflation, according to Athanasios Vamvakidis, a strategist at Bank of America. of America. He said in a BofA Global Research report that he expects only modest interest rate reductions, which could also come later than financial markets seem to be pricing in.

In other trading, benchmark U.S. crude fell 52 cents to $77.05 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 45 cents to $81.45 a barrel.

The US dollar fell to 156.71 Japanese yen from 156.80 yen. The euro rose from $1.0824 to $1.0831.

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AP Business Editor Stan Choe contributed.