singapore asiapacific shares were set to trade cautiously on thursday following overnight losses on wall street futures pointed to a lower open in japan where the benchmark nikkei 225 lost 04 in the previous session in australia the asx 200 fell 03 in early trade as the energy sector lost 166 and the heavilyweighted financials subindex slipped 053 the countrys socalled big four banks struggled for gains shares of anz were down 086 commonwealth bank fell 087 westpac lost 058 and the national australia bank declined 038 equities were soft overnight on inflation concerns as uk inflation came in stronger than expected and supply constraints weighed on housing starts in the us analysts at anz research said in a morning note the uks consumer price index rose by 42 in the 12 months to october up from 31 in september and beating economists expectations of 39 wednesdays data is expected to add pressure on the bank of england to act on interest rates at its december meeting the central bank held rates steady in november defying many investors expectations that it would be the first major central bank to hike rates following the coronavirus pandemic oil prices declined in the previous session amid growing concerns about oversupply and a recovery in demand brent crude futures fell 26 to 8028 a barrel while us west texas intermediate wti crude futures settled 3 lower at 7836 the release of the weekly us energy information administration report showing a large fall in inventories did little to stop the selling anz research analysts wrote thursday this may be due to the bearish tone that both the iea and opec set earlier this week in their monthly oil market reports both expect the market to move into surplus in the not too distant future they added president joe bidens administration has also asked some of the worlds largest oilconsuming countries to consider releasing some of their crude reserves to coordinate efforts to push prices lower and help with economic recovery according to media reports elsewhere in the currency market the us dollar last traded at 95828 against a basket of its peers the dollar index climbed from levels below 95200 in the previous week the japanese yen changed hands at 11418 per dollar while the australian dollar traded near flat at 07267