Asian stocks stall, dollar wallops pound and yen

Asian stocks wallowed at two-year lows on Wednesday, after a strengthening dollar, instability in the U.K. bond market, and upcoming U.S. inflation data spelled a wild session on Wall Street and further volatility for investors, Qazet.az reports.

Sterling languished at a two-week trough after Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey on Tuesday reiterated that the central bank will end its emergency bond-buying program this week and told pension fund managers to finish rebalancing their positions in frame.

"In the UK situation - they have inflation which is high, and under the Kwarteng fiscal policy package they were actually going to drive that even higher," said Damien Boey, chief macro strategist at Barrenjoey in Sydney. "So you're actually forcing the bank of England to do more work than it needs to - the risk premium in the gilts market goes up quite a lot."

In Japan, the rampaging dollar breached 146 yen for the first time since 1998 prompting authorities in Tokyo to pledge necessary steps in the foreign exchange market if needed. The Nikkei share average (.N225) fell 0.18%.