Global stocks mixed ahead of expected US rate hike

BEIJING (AP) — Global stock markets were mixed Tuesday as investors braced for another sharp interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve to cool inflation.

London and Shanghai advanced while Tokyo and Frankfurt declined. Oil rose nearly $2 per barrel.

Wall Street futures were lower after the benchmark S&P 500 index gained 0.1% on Monday.

This week's Fed meeting is expected to announce a rate hike of up to three-quarters of a percentage point, triple the usual margin. That would put the Fed’s benchmark rate in a range of 2.25% to 2.5%, the highest since 2018 before the coronavirus pandemic.

Optimists hope for a “Fed dial back,” but mixed reactions suggest sentiments are conflicted, said Tan Boon Heng of Mizuho Bank in a report.

In early trading, the FTSE 100 in London advanced 0.7% to 7,348.61 while the DAX in Frankfurt lost 0.5% to 13,144.82. The CAC 40 in Paris shed 0.1% to 6,232.77.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 future was off 0.3% and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%.

In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.8% to 3,277.44 while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo shed 0.2% to 27,655.21.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong gained 1.7% to 20,905.88 after Alibaba Group, the world's biggest e-commerce company, announced plans to change the status of its Hong Kong-traded shares to make them more accessible to mainland Chinese buyers.

Alibaba went public in New York in September 2014 and completed a secondary listing in Hong Kong in November 2019. The proposed change would upgrade Alibaba's Hong Kong status to a primary listing along with New York, making the shares eligible for purchase through mainland brokerages.

The Kospi in Seoul added 0.4% to 2,412.96 after data showed the South Korean economy grew by a stronger-than-expected 0.7% over the previous quarter...