singapore asiapacific stocks appeared set for a higher start on thursday after us federal reserve meeting minutes showed officials stressing the need to raise interest rates swiftly and potentially more than markets anticipated japans nikkei futures contract in chicago was at 26820 while its counterpart in osaka was at 26760 —higher than the nikkei 225s last close at 2667780 shares in australia looked poised for a muted start with the spi futures contract at 7157 against the spasx 200s last close at 715520 us fed minutes released wednesday showed officials are prepared to move ahead with several 50 basis point interest rate hikes the federal open market committee also said policy may have to move away from neutral and into restrictive territory shares on wall street rose following the release of the fed minutes with the sp 500 climbing around 095 to 397873 the dow jones industrial average advanced 19166 points or 06 to 3212028 the techheavy nasdaq composite jumped 151 to 1143474 the fomc minutes revealed a broad consensus for the need to tighten the policy rate by 50bps over the next couple of meetings national australia banks rodrigo catril wrote in a thursday note the market found some relief on the notion that the minutes revealed a broad consensus for 50bps hikes in june and july and the possibility for a pause later in the year catril said the us dollar index which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers was at 102056 following a recent slip from levels above 1022 the japanese yen traded at 12719 per dollar weaker as compared with levels below 1269 seen against the greenback earlier this week the australian dollar was at 07096 after a recent bounce from levels below 0708