Asian shares mostly up as investors await more Brexit polls

The Federal Reserve signalled it was likely to hold any imminent interest rate rise on Tuesday as chair Janet Yellen warned of the impact of Britain’s possible exit from the European Union, slower job growth and global worries about China on U.S. economic growth.

“Fed Chair Yellen’s prepared remarks to the Congress offered no major surprises, striking a cautious tone in line with last week’s FOMC statement and press conference”.

Even so, Ms Lagarde warned the USA labour force participation is dropping, as has productivity growth.

Fed chief Yellen said on Tuesday the central bank’s ability to raise interest rates this year may hinge on a rebound in hiring that would convince policymakers the USA economy is not faltering.

Pointing to dragging hiring and business investment recently, and to the risk that a pro-Brexit vote will send shock waves through global markets, Yellen signaled that the Fed has become less optimistic about USA growth over the short term and will proceed with great caution on plans to raise interest rates.

It “has to be the most pointless speech from a Fed chairman in recent memory”, said Chris Weston, an IG market analyst based in Australia.

The Fed left a key interest rate unchanged at a low level of 0.25 to 0.5 percent at its meeting last week, the fourth time it has passed up a chance to raise rates after nudging rates up by a quarter-point in December. She said there also may be linkages in terms of opportunities for education and training that can have a long-run impact on growth.

Yellen spoke a week after the Federal Open Market Committee slashed its expectations for future rate hikes.

A “cautious approach” to rates “remains appropriate”, Yellen said in testimony to the Senate Banking Committee in Washington on Tuesday. Meanwhile, some Republicans questioned whether the Fed’s decision to keep rates at a record low near zero for seven years might be hurting growth.

Mr. Holt, Scotiabank’s vice-president of economics, believes Ms. Yellen and her colleagues could set their sights on froth after tomorrow’s Brexit referendum, which obviously has the potential to upset markets, is over and done with. Because of the volume of reader comments, we can not review individual moderation decisions with readers.

Democrats on the panel defended Yellen, noting that the unemployment rate has fallen from 10 percent to 4.7 percent, and 14 million jobs have been created despite modest growth. South Korea’s KOSPI was up 0.4 percent at 1,990.07. Despite these declines, however, it is troubling that unemployment rates for these minority groups remain higher than for the nation overall, and that the annual income of the median African American household is still well below the median income of other United States households.

She said that “vulnerabilities in the global economy” included China’s challenges as it transitions away from reliance on export-led growth.

Ms Yellen warned that a Brexit could have “significant economic repercussions”, according to news reports.

He also blasted the Fed officials’ “data-dependent” monetary policy strategy, which “says nothing about which data matter, let alone how they matter”.

Current Fed policymakers’ projections foresee two rate increases this year and three each in 2017 and 2018, a slower pace from what was forecast in March.