Asian stock markets are trading mostly lower in thin trading on Monday due to a holiday in most markets, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street on Friday, amid lingering concerns about inflation and the prospect of aggressive rate hikes by central banks around the world. Asian markets closed mostly higher on Friday.
Traders are cautious ahead of this week's U.S. Federal Reserve meeting, with the central bank widely expected to raise interest rates by 50 basis points. They are also likely to pay close attention to the Fed's accompanying statement for clues about how aggressive the central bank plans to tighten monetary policy going forward.
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May 01, 2026 15:54 ET Central banks dominated the economics news flow this week with almost all major ones announcing their latest policy decisions and many boosted expectations for a rate hike in June. In other news, several countries released the preliminary data for first quarter economic growth. In the U.S., comments by Fed Chair Jerome Powell were also in focus as his term ends this month.