sydney march 17 reuters  asian markets extended a risk rally on wall street on friday to end a tumultuous week that saw a brewing banking crisis send bond yields plunging while market participants sharply lowered expectations of future interest rate hikes in western economies overnight the european central bank ecb delivered an inflationfighting 50 basis point rate hike in line with oftrepeated guidance with sentiment buttressed by the swiss national banks massive support for credit suisse group ag csgns which sent the troubled lenders shares 20 higher further helping sentiment as many as 11 us banks including jpmorgan chase  co jpmn will deposit as much as 30 billion into first republic bank frcn investors welcomed the move by sending the stricken lenders stock 10 higher mscis broadest index of asiapacific shares outside japan miapj0000pus rose 09 on friday erasing earlier losses this week japans nikkei n225 climbed 05 sp 500 futures eased 01 and nasdaq futures were flat after major us stock indices rallied hard on easing fear of a global banking crisis meanwhile global central bankers on thursday introduced what market watchers interpreted as an emerging effort to firewall the rate increases needed to fight inflation from separate efforts to calm concern about financial stability the ecb is trying to draw clear lines between its inflation fight and its job of maintaining financial stability this is a theme other central banks are likely to echo said james rossiter head of global macro strategy at td securities it is rare that financial turmoil emerges in such a highinflation environment and while tighter financial conditions come at a convenient time for inflationfighting central banks they are unlikely to believe that tighter financial conditions alone will be enough to return inflation to target after hiking as indicated the ecb refrained from providing a forward guidance on future rate hikes euribor futures have fully priced in a quarterpoint hike to 325 at the ecbs next policy meeting and the possibility of another markets are also back to overwhelmingly pricing in another 25 basis point hike from the us federal reserve at its meeting next week though there is a 20 chance of the fed pausing instead twoyear treasury yields continued to climb on friday rising 8 basis points to 42137 and pulling away from a sixmonth low of 37200 touched earlier this week yields were however headed for the steepest weekly decline since february 2020 when markets were thrown into chaos by covid19 fear tenyear yields were steady at 35789 on friday and were set for a weekly decline of 11 basis points the us dollar and japanese yen reversed some of their safeharbour flows the dollar index hovered at 10438 after easing 03 overnight while the yen pulled back from a onemonth high to 13347 per dollar the euro steadied at 10615 after having received a boost from the ecbs halfpoint hike overnight the past week has provided an unwelcome reminder of the inherent fragility of banking systems said analysts at capital economics in a note to client there is still a great deal of uncertainty the key question is whether this episode proves another relatively brief period of volatility that soon dies down or the first tremors of a major banking crisis at this stage the answer is unknowable underscoring the scale of stress in the financial system data showed that banks sought record amounts of emergency liquidity from the federal reserve over recent days smashing the prior record set during the global financial crisis oil prices slipped on friday but were headed for a 10 fall for the week us crude eased 03 at 6815 a barrel while brent crude also skidded 03 at 745 per barrel gold was slightly higher spot gold was traded at 192069 per ounce heading for a weekly gain of 28