beijing asian stock markets were mixed wednesday after a cooler reading on us inflation fueled hopes the federal reserve will postpone a possible interest rate hike the nikkei 225 in tokyo advanced 09 the hang seng hsi in hong kong was flat and the shanghai composite index shcomp rose 01 the kospi 180721 in south korea was off 04 and sydney’s spasx 200 xjo gained 04 benchmarks indexes in new zealand nz50gr  malaysia fbmklci and indonesia jakidx declined while stocks rose in singapore sti  taiwan y9999 was little changed wall street’s benchmark sp 500 index gained 07 to a 14month high after government data tuesday showed us consumer inflation eased to 4 over a year earlier in may from the previous month’s 49 it was less than half last june’s peak of 91 but still double the fed’s 2 target that reinforced hopes the fed will avoid announcing another rate hike when its monthly meeting ends wednesday two fed board members said previously the us central bank should put off another hike while it studies the impact of previous increases “the fed will see this as a window of opportunity to pause” said clifford bennett of acy securities in a report on wall street the sp 500 spx rose to 436901 the dow jones industrial average djia gained 04 to 3421212 and the nasdaq composite comp rallied 08 to 1357332 traders hope the us economy can avoid a recession even after the fed raised its benchmark lending rate to a 16year high to extinguish surging inflation by cooling business activity tuesday’s inflation reading prompted traders to increase bets for the fed to announce no change to interest rates that would be the first monthly meeting in more than a year without a rate hike previous rate hikes led to a contraction in manufacturing and three highprofile bank failures many investors came into this year predicting a recession would hit in the third quarter which is two weeks away yet a resilient job market has propped up economic activity in energy markets benchmark us crude cln23 lost 23 cents to 6919 per barrel in electronic trading on the new york mercantile exchange the contract rose 230 on tuesday to 6942 brent crude brnq23  the price basis for international oil trading shed 19 cents to 7410 per barrel in london it gained 245 the previous session to 7429 the dollar usdjpy declined to 14008 yen from tuesday’s 14029 yen