Australia

Australian shares are set to open flat after US markets slipped Wednesday as investors worried about what the Federal Reserve would do about interest rates. Data on retail sales came in stronger than expected.

ASX futures were down 3 points at 7127 as of 7:00am on Thursday.

Going into the last hour of trade, the S&P 500 was down 0.67%, while the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite Index retreated 1.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was flat.

Wednesday’s data showed US retail sales were up 1.3% from the prior month, despite the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes.

In commodity markets, Brent crude oil slipped 1% to $US92.91 a barrel, gold edged down 0.3% to US$ 1,773.87.

In local bond markets, the yield on Australian 2 Year government bonds dropped to 3.15% while the 10 Year fell to 3.72%. Overseas, the yield on 2 Year US Treasury notes declined to 4.37% and the yield on the 10 Year US Treasury notes was down at 3.7%.

The Australian dollar hit 67.36 US cents. The Wall Street Journal Dollar Index, which tracks the US dollar against 16 other currencies edged up to 99.17.

Asia

Asian shares were mostly lower Wednesday, as investors got jittery over global risks after Poland said a Russian-made missile killed two people in the country.

Benchmarks fell in morning trading in Tokyo before recovering. The Nikkei 225 Index ended Wednesday up 0.14%. Indexes in, Shanghai and Hong Kong were both down. The Hang Seng Index was down 0.47%, while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.45%.

“Asian equities were defensive on Wednesday, with geopolitical tensions driving price action,” said Anderson Alves at ActivTrades to AP News.

“Traders are waiting for further developments on the geopolitical front for direction for risk assets. Any signal of escalation in the volatile situation could see a reaction across markets,” he said

Europe

European stocks fell as traders assesses corporate earnings, economic data and the geopolitical situation. The pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 lost 0.98%, the German DAX lost 1%, while the French CAC 40 was down 0.5%.

In London, the FTSE 100 closed down 0.2% as the geopolitical uncertainty stemming from the reported landing of Russian-made missiles in Poland lingered. A higher-than-expected U.K. inflation number was also a reminder "that continued sticky inflation was likely to be a significant drag on future earnings potential, not only in the U.K., but also in Europe where it is just as high, and in a lot of cases much higher," CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said in a note.

Ocado was the session's biggest faller, down 5.7%, followed by Rightmove and Rolls-Royce, down 4.5% and 4.3% respectively. Sage Group was the biggest riser, up, 7.3%, followed by BAE Systems, up 4.2%, and Haleon, up 3.2%.

North America

US markets slipped Wednesday as investors worried about what the Federal Reserve would do about interest rates. Data on retail sales came in stronger than expected.

Going into the last hour of trade, the S&P 500 was down 0.67%, while the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite Index retreated 1.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was flat.

Wednesday’s data showed US retail sales were up 1.3% from the prior month, despite the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes.

“Part of the relative strength in retail sales versus some of the reported earnings is that it isn’t an inflation-adjusted series,” Ian Lyngen, head of U.S. rates strategy at BMO Capital Markets told the Wall Street Journal. “Yes, prices are higher and that’s creating higher nominal sales. But in real terms, it’s not as strong as headlines might suggest.”

The best performing segments of the market were defensive-oriented businesses such as consumer staples, utilities, and healthcare stocks. Shares of technology and consumer discretionary firms that are more sensitive to the economic growth outlook suffered the most, down 1.5% and 1.3%, respectively.

Cryptocurrency prices were slightly lower as the fallout from the FTX saga. Bitcoin slipped 2% from its 5 p.m. ET price to $16,454.