Asian shares mostly rise as markets digest Fed moves

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares mostly rose Friday, as investors digested the latest message from the U.S. Federal Reserve on raising short-term interest rates by late 2023.

Japan's benchmark lost earlier gains and inched down less than 0.1% in afternoon trading to 29,009.75. South Korea's Kospi edged 0.2% higher to 3,272.42. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.1% to 7,368.90. Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 0.7% to 28,769.94, while the Shanghai Composite gained 0.1% to 3,530.32.

The Bank of Japan kept its ultra-lax monetary policy intact, as investors had expected. Wrapping up a two-day meeting, the central bank also extended by six months, until March 2022, a lending program to help companies weather the pandemic.

“Japan’s economy has picked up as a trend, although it has remained in a severe situation due to the impact of COVID-19 at home and abroad,” the Bank of Japan said in a statement.

The Fed's comments came Wednesday, and global markets had already initially reacted Thursday. But comments about the possibility of slowing the central bank's bond-buying program are rippling through markets. Such support has been a key reason for the stock market's resurgence to records.

The S&P 500 slipped less than 0.1% to 4,221.86 after meandering from a 0.2% gain to a 0.7% loss. Most of the stocks in the index and across Wall Street were lower, but gains for Apple, Microsoft and a few other tech heavyweights helped offset the losses.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.6% to 33,823.45, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.9%, to 14,161.35, lifted by the gains for tech and other high-growth stocks.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note gave back nearly all of its spurt from a day before. It fell back to 1.51% from 1.57% late Wednesday.

The two-year yield,...