Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.2% to finish at 28,606.76. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 edged up nearly 0.1% to 7,365.50. South Korea's Kospi gained less than 0.1% to 2,573.58. Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 1.2% to 20,410.16. The Shanghai Composite shed 0.6% to 3,371.66.
Wall Street closed little changed after a day of meandering trading. The S&P 500 edged up 0.1% to 4,154.87 after drifting between small gains and losses throughout the day. Bank of America rose 0.6% after its better-than-expected profit report led to an up-and-down day of trading. The majority of companies have been beating forecasts so far in the early days of this reporting season.
Health care stocks were broadly weak and the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 out of the 11 sectors that make up the index. Johnson & Johnson fell 2.8% despite reporting stronger profit than expected and raising its dividend. The worry was that customers could pull their deposits out of banks together at once, similar to the runs that toppled Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Most of the focus has been on regional banks instead of the massive "too-big-to-fail" banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.
The Federal Reserve has jacked rates up at a furious pace over the last year in hopes of slowing high inflation. High rates can suffocate inflation, but only by slowing the entire economy in one blunt action, raising the risk of a recession and hurting investment prices.
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