markets fell in asia on thursday as traders contemplated the prospect of more central bank interest rate hikes as they struggle to tame persistently high inflation federal reserve boss jerome powell dealt a blow to investors hoping its tightening cycle may be near an end by warning us lawmakers it may make sense to keep lifting his comments came as pressure built on the bank of england to announce a biggerthanexpected increase at thursdays meeting after news that united kingdom inflation was unchanged at 87 percent in may confounding forecasts the european central bank last week joined canada and australia in hiking further with switzerland and norway tipped to follow suit after holding rates last week for the first time since starting last march speculation had been growing that the fed was close to calling it a day altogether thanks to slowing price rises and a softer jobs market however in congressional testimony on wednesday powell said given how far weve come it may make sense to move rates higher but to do so at a more moderate pace he added that while progress was being made  inflation dropped to 40 percent last month from 49 percent in april  it has consistently surprised us  and essentially all other forecasters  by being more persistent than expected two more rate hikes this year was a pretty good guess he said the fed has already raised its benchmark lending rate by five percentage points since march 2022 from close to zero to 50525 percent traders say there is a 75 percent probability officials will hike by 25 basis points at their july meeting according to data from cme group the expected increase in rates has revived worries the economy will tip into recession the fed is clearly not nearing the end of its tightening cycle and if other central banks seem poised to deliver more than a couple rate hikes that might make it easier for the fed to remain aggressive with tightening said oandas edward moya powell said lowering inflation has a long way to go and that could very well mean that they wont stop until the fall all three main indexes on wall street fell for a third straight session and asia followed on thursday sydney singapore manila wellington and jakarta were all in the red and tokyo was flat though seoul eked out a gain markets across asia have gone into reverse this week having enjoyed a healthy runup in previous weeks on hopes that the tightening cycle was nearing an end and on talk that china was preparing a raft of stimulus measures the optimism was fanned by the central banks decision to cut borrowing costs last week though a smallerthanexpected reduction in the main benchmark rate this week knocked confidence the failure of beijing to unveil any concrete policies to kickstart the stuttering economy has fed fears that the recovery from a covid lockdowninduced slowdown has already come to an end analysts said the traders are now looking ahead to a key meeting next month that will be headed by president xi jinping eurodollar up at 10993 from 10990 on wednesday pounddollar up at 12768 from 12766 dollaryen down at 14171 from 14187 yen europound up at 8609 pence from 8607 pence west texas intermediate down 02 percent at 7240 per barrel brent north sea crude down 02 percent at 7698 per barrel new york  dow down 03 percent at 3395152 close