Asian Shares Plunge while U.S. Yields Rise amid Inflation Worries

U.S. yields have soared to a 23-month high while Asian shares have plummeted to a record 15-month low following Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s announcement of upcoming tightening of monetary policy.

In addition to that, geopolitical tensions between Ukraine and Russia have aggravated oil supply among OPEC+ countries with prices hitting record highs in several years.

Following the conclusion of its two-day meeting on Wednesday, the Fed confirmed its decision to hike interest rates in March after winding up its bond purchases.

David Chao of Invesco contended, "Powell [is] not committing to the size or the frequency of rate hikes and also the timing of the balance sheet reduction. I think that buys him a bit of wiggle room as to how quickly and with what velocity he wants to normalize monetary policy in the U.S. ... it's very data dependent and so we're certainly watching other economic data that's going to be released especially inflation data, inflation expectations data, which I think could trigger more aggressive monetary policy tightening."

Chinese blue chips dropped to a record low since September 30th, 2020, while Australian shares and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index plunged by over 2%. Tokyo’s Nikkei dropped by more than 2.5%, hitting its lowest since November 26th, 2020.

©Photo: Financial Times