bangkok shares advanced friday in asia after news that us consumer inflation slowed last month pushed wall street benchmarks higher tokyo’s nikkei 225 index nik fell 1 on speculation that the bank of japan might relent and tighten its ultraloose monetary policy as the yield on 10year japanese government bonds was pushed beyond the central bank’s cap of 05 on heavy selling ahead of next week’s policy setting meeting the boj has kept its key interest rate at minus 01 maintaining that downward pressure from a likely recession is a bigger risk than inflation which has remained at relatively moderate levels in japan shares in fast retailing 9983  which shot up earlier in the week on news it would hike wages by as much as 40 dropped 64 after the company reported weaker than expected profit in the previous quarter china reported its trade surplus ballooned to a record 8776 billion in 2022 as exports rose 7 despite weakening us and european demand and antivirus controls that temporarily shut down shanghai and other industrial centers the country’s politically sensitive trade surplus expanded by 297 from 2021′s record already the highest ever for any economy hong kong’s hang seng hsi rose 02 and the shanghai composite index shcomp climbed 06 the kospi 180721 in seoul surged 08 while australia’s spasx 200 xjo jumped 07 benchmarks in taiwan y9999 and singapore sti gained while stocks slipped in indonesia jakidx  on thursday the sp 500 spx rose 03 to 398317 the dow jones industrial average djia gained 06 to 3418997 the nasdaq comp advanced 06 to 1100110 the report showing inflation slowed in december revived hopes that the federal reserve may go easier on the economy using smaller interest rate hikes to cool prices such increases can stifle inflation but they do so by slowing the economy and risk causing a recession they also hurt investment prices analysts warned investors not to get carried away there’s still pressure on the economy from high rates and more big swings may still be to come inflation has been easing for six straight months even though it slowed to 65 last month from its peak of more than 9 in june that’s still high the fed has been adamant that it plans to continue raising rates this year and that it sees no rate cuts happening until 2024 at the earliest some areas of the economy remain strong threatening to keep up the pressure on inflation chief among them is the labor market a report on thursday showed fewer workers filed for unemployment benefits last week that’s an indication layoffs remain low even though some big tech companies have made highprofile announcements on job cuts a strong job market is of course good for workers particularly when their raises have been failing to keep up with inflation but the fed maintains that wage gains could lead companies to raise prices to cover their higher costs and only worsen inflation even though workers’ wage gains slowed in december earnings reporting season is set to kick off in earnest friday with jpmorgan chase and unitedhealth group among the day’s headliners one big worry on wall street is that high inflation and a slowing global economy are eating into profits for big companies analysts say this could be the first time earnings per share for sp 500 companies fall from yearago levels since 2020 in other trading friday us benchmark crude oil clg23 lost 18 cents to 7821 per barrel in electronic trading on the new york mercantile exchange it gained 98 cents to 7839 a barrel on thursday brent crude brnh23  the pricing basis for international trading lost 32 cents to 8371 per barrel the dollar usdjpy fell to 12910 japanese yen from 12924 yen