asian markets were mixed wednesday as investors weighed data showing the us economy remained resilient in the face of rising interest rates against the prospect of more tightening to bring inflation under control wall street popped higher tuesday after a string of readings soothed concerns about a possible recession while traders were also cheered by chinese growth pledges however reports that washington could block the export of artificial intelligence chips to china weighed on sentiment us investors cheered news that a closely watched gauge of consumer confidence last month hit its highest level since january last year while new home sales surged in may and orders for bigticket manufactured items rose again the figures tempered fears that the worlds top economy could tip into recession because of more than a year of rate hikes and lifted hopes the us federal reserve could still guide it to a socalled soft landing by also bringing inflation down to its two percent target meanwhile president joe biden on tuesday said that while economists had predicted a contraction was on the way it still had not materialised its been coming for 11 months well guess what i dont think it is going to come he told a fundraiser flagging healthy jobs growth and antiinflation measures but national australia banks rodrigo catril pointed to the theme of sectoral recessions playing with different lags making the fed job to tame inflation harder he pointed to the property sector now performing well after being the first to be hit by rate hikes while manufacturing is in recession at the same time the services sector is growing meanwhile the resilience of the labour market and consumer are feeding not detracting from inflationary pressures he added overall the data is telling us the fed needs to keep its foot on the tightening pedal tokyo sydney singapore wellington and taipei all rose but hong kong shanghai wellington and taipei dropped investors are now looking forward to a meeting later wednesday in portugal of top central bankers including fed boss jerome powell as well as the heads of the european central bank the bank of japan and the bank of england the boj is in focus as it stands by its ultraloose monetary policy even with the yen weakening on the back of expected fed rate hikes the yen which has lost almost 10 percent against the dollar this year picked up slightly after japans top currency official masato kanda said authorities will respond should there be excessive foreign exchange moves oil prices ticked slightly higher but made little impact on the more than two percent losses suffered tuesday on longrunning worries about demand caused by everrising interest rates and as concerns ease over russian supplies after the weekends aborted uprising with no visible interruption to russian oil flows from the weekend political upheaval prices are falling as oil markets return to focus on spot fundamentals which have not changed said spi asset managements stephen innes eurodollar down at 10943 from 10964 on tuesday pounddollar down at 12726 from 12748 dollaryen down at 14396 yen from 14406 yen europound up at 8599 pence from 8595 pence west texas intermediate up 01 percent at 6780 per barrel brent north sea crude up 01 percent at 7233 per barrel new york  dow up 06 percent at 3392674 close