By SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific are set to open lower on Tuesday after the S&P 500 fell overnight and closed in bear market territory.
Futures pointed to a lower open for Japanese stocks. The Nikkei futures contract in Chicago was at 26,470 while its counterpart in Osaka was at 26,400. In comparison, the Nikkei 225’s last close was at 26,987.44.
Australian stocks were also set to open lower, with the SPI futures contract at 6,631, against the S&P/ASX 200’s last close at 6,932.
The S&P 500 fell nearly 4% overnight to 3,749.63, closing in bear market territory, or down more than 20% from its January peak.
Other major indexes stateside also saw big declines. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 876.05 points, or 2.79%, to 30,516.74. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lagged, plunging 4.68% to around 10,809.23.
The losses on Wall Street came as investors braced for a potentially faster pace of interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve following Friday’s hotter-than-expected consumer inflation report.
Fed policymakers are now contemplating the idea of a 75-basis-point rate increase later this week, according to CNBC’s Steve Liesman. That’s bigger than the 50-basis-point hike many traders had come to expect. The Wall Street Journal reported the story first.
Currencies
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 105.078 — continuing a general upward trek after last week’s climb from levels below 102.6.
The Japanese yen traded at 134.24 per dollar, stronger as compared with levels above 135 seen against the greenback yesterday. The Australian dollar was at $0.6937 after yesterday’s fall from above $0.70.
