asian markets opened mostly down on wednesday following a tepid lead from wall street with traders trying to assess the federal reserves next moves in the fight against inflation the more or less flat results in new york left some looking for direction with global investors scrutinising mixed earnings reports for major us lenders but receding fears of a banking crisis coupled with optimism for a recovery in the worlds secondbiggest economy were still not enough to give a meaningful boost to sentiment theres not a lot of volatility because i think theres not enough evidence of a fullblown recession nor is there evidence of a fullblown growth track out there michael cuggino president and portfolio manager of san franciscobased permanent portfolio family of funds told bloomberg radio on wall street bank of america rose on higher profits but goldman sachs was hit by a slowdown in corporate mergers investors were also keeping an eye on the results of regional us banks after three collapsed last month as lenders faced pressure from rising interest rates the outlook was also mixed on whether the fed was reaching the end of its inflationfighting cycle of rate hikes with some analysts warning that certain investors apparent confidence in coming cuts was misplaced fed officials also seemed split on the way forward with atlanta bank boss raphael bostic happy for one more hike before holding rates for some time above five percent but st louis counterpart james bullard looking at taking them to as high as 55575 percent borrowing costs are currently at 4755 percent investors are also weighing the outlook for the chinese economy with data tuesday showing it expanded a forecastbusting 45 percent expansion in januarymarch the first quarter it has been unencumbered by growthsapping zerocovid restrictions the jump was helped by a surge in retail sales in march but while the readings were healthy other figures on industrial output and fixedasset investment came in below par pointing to an uneven recovery and weighing on most asian markets tuesday the chinese economy is also dealing with other issues including a debtladen property sector global inflation and the threat of recession elsewhere the market has been very biased to discount good news in china but we think the improvement mainly if inflation picks up will become harder to ignore over the coming months stephen innes of spi asset management said in a note investors expect chinese activity data to improve further in the next couple of months given a continued reopening impulse stillaccommodative macro policies and a low base from the second quarter of 2022 when shanghai was in lockdown he added eurodollar down at 10968 from 10975 on tuesday pounddollar down at 12414 from 12425 dollaryen up at 13434 yen from 13410 yen europound up at 8836 pence from 8826 pence