Asian stock markets are trading mostly higher on Thursday, following the broadly positive cues from global markets overnight, as traders reacted positively to cooler-than-expected US inflation data in the month of June, which eased concerns about the outlook for interest rates. The report also showed a notable slowdown in the annual rate of US consumer price growth. Asian Markets closed mixed on Wednesday.
While the US Fed is still widely expected to raise interest rates by another quarter point later this month, the data has led to renewed optimism that will be the end of the central bank's rate-hiking cycle.
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Market Analysis
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.