Asian stock markets are trading mixed on Friday, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight, dragged by weakness in technology stocks, which mirrored their peers on the tech-heavy Nasdaq. Traders also remain cautious ahead to next week's US Fed monetary policy meeting, where the Fed is widely expected to raise interest rates by another quarter point. Asian markets ended mostly lower on Thursday.
The Australian stock market is modestly lower on Friday, giving up the gains in the previous two sessions, with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 staying a tad above the 7,300 level, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight, with losses in gold miners and technology stocks. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index is losing 24.80 points or 0.34 percent to 7,300.20, after hitting a low of 7,288.80 earlier. The broader All Ordinaries Index is down 27.60 points or 0.37 percent to 7,514.30. Australian markets ended slightly higher on Thursday.
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May 15, 2026 15:25 ET Apart from the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair, the main news on the economics front this week included key price data from the U.S. and the first quarter economic growth figures from major economies. Both consumer prices and producer costs have started to reflect the effect of supply shocks due to the Middle East conflict. In Europe, GDP data was in focus, while inflation data from China dominated the news flow in Asia.