Investing.com - Asian shares fell on Friday as investors increasingly expect the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates at the end of the year as they parsed comments from Federal Reserve officials that spoke in the U.S. late Thursday.
The Nikkei 225 fell 0.83%, while the S&P/ASX 200 was down 1.48% and the Shanghai Composite eased 1.16%.
At the top, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen omitted to comment on future monetary policy moves.
But she was one of half dozen monetary policymakers from the Federal Open Market Committee, including Yellen and vice chairman Stanley Fischer were scheduled to make public comments ahead of its highly anticipated meeting next month on Dec. 15-16. In welcoming remarks at the Fed's conference on Monetary Policy Implementation and Transmission in the Post-Crisis, Yellen declined to address the FOMC's near-term outlook regarding a potential rate hike or the current state of the U.S. economy.
Instead, Yellen spoke briefly on the importance of assessing how monetary policy impacts the global economy in the post-crisis period.
“At the peak of the crisis and during its immediate aftermath, unconventional monetary policy measures were designed and implemented by the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world,” Yellen said. “The post-crisis period has offered policy makers an opportunity to assess a range of novel policy and operational issues associated with the conduct of monetary policy and the effectiveness of different policy options.”
Minutes later, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond president Jeffrey Lacker noted in a speech before The Cato Institute's 33rd Annual Monetary Policy Conference that monetary policy determines the "long-run path" of price levels, a notion he said has remained "essentially unchanged since the Great Recession."
Lacker has dissented in each of the last two FOMC's meetings, voting each time for a quarter-point rate hike. Earlier at the conference, St. Louis Fed president James Bullard reiterated prior views that the FOMC's unemployment and inflation goals have been met, providing "no reason to hold rates" at near-zero levels.
Separately, comments that a stronger dollar remains a headwind to the U.S. economy came from Federal Reserve Vice Chair Stanley Fischer Thursday, noting accommodative monetary policy helped the economy withstand the impact.
"While the dollar's appreciation and foreign weakness have been a sizable shock, the U.S. economy appears to be weathering them reasonably well, notwithstanding their large effects on certain sectors of the economy heavily exposed to international trade," Fischer said in remarks prepared for a conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Board.
"Monetary policy has played a key role in achieving these outcomes through deferring liftoff relative to what was expected a little over a year ago," he added.
As well, another key official weighed in.
"I see the risks right now of moving too quickly versus moving too slowly as nearly balanced," New York Fed President William Dudley said in remarks delivered at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday.
Dudley, who has a permanent vote on the Fed's policy-setting committee, said the decision still required policymakers to "think carefully" because of the risk that the United States is facing chronically slower growth and low inflation that would justify continued low rates.
Overnight, U.S. stocks were lower after the close on Thursday, as losses in the Oil & Gas, Basic Materials and Healthcare sectors led shares lower.
At the close in NYSE, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.44%, while the S&P 500 index lost 1.40%, and the NASDAQ Composite index fell 1.22%.