Stock market today: Asian stocks follow Wall Street higher as markets await a rate decision from the Fed

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Asian markets were mostly higher on Wednesday ahead of the US Federal Reserve's forecast on the timing of its interest rate cuts.

Oil prices and US futures fell.

Japan's markets were closed for a holiday. On Tuesday, the Bank of Japan raised its key interest rate for the first time in 17 years, increasing it to a range of zero to 0.1% from minus 0.1%.

The U.S. dollar rose against the Japanese yen after the BOJ's comments on its decision suggested a wide gap between interest rates in the United States and Japan will remain for the foreseeable future. The dollar rose to 151.46 yen from 150.87 yen, its highest level in four months.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.3% to 16,580.95 and the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.5% to 3,077.99.

As expected, China left its key interest rates unchanged on Wednesday. While the economy is showing signs of improvement, the real estate market remains precarious.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.1% to 7,695.80, while South Korea's Kospi rose 1.3% to 2,690.48 and Taiwan's Taiex lost 0.4%.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.6% to 5,178.51, surpassing its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.8% to 39,110.76 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4% to 16,166.79.

International Paper posted the biggest gain in the S&P 500, rising 11%, after the company named Andrew Silvernail, an executive at investment firm KKR, as its new CEO.

U.S.-traded shares of Unilever rose 2.8% after it announced it was spinning off Ben & Jerry's and its ice cream business, cutting 7,500 jobs in the process.

Nvidia swung from a loss of nearly 4% to a gain of 1.1%.

On the losing side of Wall Street was Super Micro Computer, whose shares had previously risen from less than $100 to over $1,000 in a year. The seller of server and storage systems for AI and other computing fell 9% after it said it would sell 2 million shares of its stock.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, the focus was on the Federal Reserve.

The Fed began its final interest rate meeting on Tuesday and will announce its decision later in the day. The widespread expectation is that the key interest rate will remain at a two-decade high. The hope is that she will indicate that she still expects to cut rates three times later this year, as she indicated a few months ago.

Part of the record rise in U.S. stocks was due to hopes of such cuts, which would ease pressure on the economy and financial system. But the latest inflation reports have consistently been worse than expected. That could force the Fed to say it will make fewer rate cuts this year, and traders have already abandoned earlier expectations that the first rate cut of the year would come on Wednesday.

Bank of America strategists expect Fed officials to stick with their forecasts, which show the middle member still expects three rate cuts in 2024. But it's a close call, and “the risk is that fewer cuts will be signaled,” said strategists led by Mark Cabana.

In other trading, U.S. benchmark crude lost 28 cents to $82.45 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 20 cents to $87.18 a barrel.

The euro was at $1.0869, up from $1.0865.