jan 24 reuters  south korea and the philippines led losses among asias emerging stock markets on monday as risk appetite waned on fears that the us federal reserve could adopt a more aggressive stance on policy tightening at its january meeting later this week equities in seoul ks11 and manila psi fell by between 1 and 15 while shares in mumbai nsei jakarta jkse and kuala lumpur klse also dropped after major indexes on wall street fell sharply on friday markets in asia traded cautiously on monday ahead of the feds ratesetting federal open market committee where some analysts have started to speculate that it is possible though unlikely that it will raise interest rates for the first time since the pandemic began adding to the caution were concerns about a possible russian attack on ukraine with the us state department pulling out family members of its embassy staff in kyiv central bankers in asia will certainly pay attention to the fed meeting the harder the fed hits the brakes the more monetary officials in the region will have to swerve to avoid skidding off the road frederic neumann hsbcs cohead of asian economics research said in a note central banks in asia have not been pressured to pursue interest rate hikes as aggressively as their european peers a stable yuan has provided some resilience for regional currencies amid broad dollar strength partly as a result inflation while elevated has not veered out of control in most asian economies however the prospect of higher us interest rates has left regional policymakers needing to strike a balance between protecting their economies recovery while maintaining stability and stemming potential outflows that could weaken their current account surpluses the dollar index which measures the greenback against six major peers was steady at 95722 on monday morning while the yuan gained 01 asian currencies were largely mixed indonesias rupiah and the malaysian ringgit inched higher while the thai baht and philippine peso dropped the riskoff in equities on fed and russiaukraine concerns does not appear to be translating to significant bouts of aversion in asian fx at this point analysts at maybank said in a note meanwhile a reuters poll found that south koreas economy likely accelerated in the last quarter buoyed by strong exports and investments but an economic slowdown in china and surging covid19 cases pose a significant risk read more  indonesian 10year benchmark yields are up 11 basis points at 6436  south korean shares ks11 fall as much as 19 on track for their worst session since november last year  china evergrande 3333hk shares jump more than 13 a day after the embattled developer said it would appoint an official from a unit of china cinda asset management 1359hk to its board read more reporting by harish sridharan in bengaluru editing by simon cameronmoore