Asian shares track Wall St retreat on interest rate worries

ELAINE KURTENBACH
AP Business Writer

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares have tracked a retreat on Wall Street after details from last month’s Federal Reserve meeting showed the central bank plans to be aggressive in fighting inflation. Benchmarks fell in all major regional markets, with Tokyo briefly down more than 2%. U.S. futures fell while oil prices were higher. Minutes from the Fed’s meeting show policymakers agreed to begin cutting the Fed’s stockpile of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities by about $95 billion a month, starting in May. The S&P 500 fell 1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4%. Technology companies had some of the biggest losses, pushing the Nasdaq composite down 2.2%.