Japan +0.20%. China +0.02%. Hong Kong +0.05%. Hong Kong’s central bank follows the Fed and raises its base rate 25bp to 5%, as expected. Australia +0.13%. Australian data – December building approvals +18.5% m/m (expected +1.0%, prior -9.0%). India -0.07%. Overnight on Wall Street, major stock indexes are closing higher in the day with the NASDAQ leading the charge with a gain of 2%. The S&P is up 1%, while the Dow Industrial Average is closing near unchanged. The Dow Industrial Average and Rosen 6.9 points or 0.02% at 34092.97; S&P index rose 42.61 points or 1.05% at 4119.20; NASDAQ rose 231.78 points or 2.00% at 11816.33. South Korea January CPI comes in way hotter, +0.8% m/m (expected +0.5%, prior +0.2%). New Zealand data – December 2022 Building permits -7.2% m/m (prior +6.7%). BOE and ECB the main highlight of the agenda today. The Federal Reserve raised benchmark overnight lending rates by 25 basis points, or 0.25 percentage point, matching investor expectations. The hike brings the Fed’s target range to 4.5%-4.75%, the highest level since 2007. Oil prices rose in early Asian trade on Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points, sending the dollar lower. Brent crude futures rose 56 cents, or 0.7%, at $83.40 a barrel while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) U.S. crude futures rose 65 cents, or 0.8%, to $77.05 a barrel. Gold prices extended gains on Thursday to touch their highest in more than nine months, after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by an expected 25 basis points and Chair Jerome Powell’s comments were read as dovish by the market. Spot gold was up 0.2% at $1,953.76 per ounce, as of 0206 GMT, after hitting its highest since April 2022 earlier in the session. U.S. gold futures rose 1.3% to $1,967.50. Elsewhere, spot silver gained 1% to $24.22 per ounce, scaling a one-week high. Platinum rose 0.7% to $1,010.92 and palladium edged up 0.3% to $1,674.03. U.S. futures lower. Dow Jones -0.35%; S&P 500 -0.33%; Nasdaq -0.23%.