Asian shares track Wall Street higher, oil prices retreat

Asian shares were mostly higher Thursday after an advance on Wall Street that ended a three-day losing streak.

Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai advanced while Seoul edged lower. Oil prices fell back and U.S. futures climbed.

Investors appeared to brush aside fresh evidence that inflation remains widespread in the U.S. economy according to a U.S. government report that rising energy costs pushed wholesale prices up a record 11.2% last month from a year earlier.

That report followed news a day earlier that U.S. consumer prices remain at their highest levels in generations.

Rising prices are driving the Federal Reserve and many other central banks to tighten monetary policy by raising interest rates, among other measures, to help cool the surging demand that is contributing to the problem.

South Korea’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 percentage points to 1.50%. That was its fourth increase since August 2021. The Kospi in Seoul slipped less than 0.1% to 2,715.27.

Shares in Singapore were flat after the Singapore Monetary Authority tightened its policy by adjusting currency exchange rates in a more aggressive move than had been expected. It also raised its forecast for 2022 inflation to 2.5%-3.5% from 2.0%-3.0%.