Shibuya crossing in known to be the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Marco Bottigelli | Moment | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Asia-Pacific markets gave up earlier gains to trade mostly lower Thursday, following the Federal Reserve’s third rate cut of the year. <\/p>\n
The U.S central bank reduced the Federal Funds rate by 25 basis points to 3.5%-3.75%, and signaled that it was done easing for now.<\/p>\n
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at his post-meeting news conference that the reduction puts the Fed in a comfortable position as far as rates go.<\/p>\n
“We are well-positioned to wait and see how the economy evolves,” Powell said, while noting that President Donald Trump’s tariffs had fueled inflation.<\/p>\n
The U.S. dollar index fell as much as 98.54 on Thursday, marking its weakest level since Oct. 21.<\/p>\n
Japan’s Nikkei 225<\/a> started the day in positive territory, but fell 0.58%. The Topix was also down 0.52%.<\/p>\n South Korea’s Kospi<\/a> also reversed course to dip 0.56%, and the small-cap Kosdaq lost 0.36%. <\/p>\n Hong Kong Hang Seng index<\/a> advanced 0.1%, but mainland China’s CSI 300 fell marginally. <\/p>\n Shares of ZTE Corp dropped more than 5% after Reuters reported<\/a> that the Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp might need to pay more than $1 billion to the U.S. government to settle allegations of foreign bribery.<\/p>\n Australia’s\u00a0S&P\/ASX 200<\/a> was also just below the flatline. <\/p>\n In addition to the rate decision Wednesday, the Fed also announced it would resume buying $40 billion in Treasury bills, beginning Friday. Short-term Treasury yields moved lower as a result.<\/p>\n The central bank also addressed the weak labor market in its statement, removing language stating that it “remained low.” This suggests its focus is shifting to supporting the economy, away from inflation.<\/p>\n Overnight in the U.S., the\u00a0Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0jumped on Wednesday, climbing 1.1% after the Fed decision, while the\u00a0S&P 500<\/a>\u00a0advanced 0.7% and the\u00a0Nasdaq Composite<\/a>\u00a0increased 0.3%.<\/p>\n \u2014 CNBC’s Jeff Cox, Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shibuya crossing in known to be the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing \u00a9 Marco Bottigelli | Moment | Getty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[4055,4053,491,79,207,193,179,18,4050,19,17,4051,188,192,4052,190,1663,121851,4054],"class_list":{"0":"post-226758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-asia-economy","9":"tag-breaking-news-asia","10":"tag-breaking-news-markets","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-business-news","13":"tag-dow-jones-industrial-average","14":"tag-economy","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-hang-seng-index","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-kospi-index","20":"tag-markets","21":"tag-nasdaq-composite","22":"tag-nikkei-225-index","23":"tag-sp-500-index","24":"tag-sp-asx-200","25":"tag-silver-us-dollar-spot","26":"tag-world-markets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115699042499523985","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}