By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Asia Pacific stocks were mostly down on Friday morning, with a slew of U.S. Federal Reserve officials indicating faster-than-expected interest rate hikes and the tumbling to its lowest level since October 2021.

China’s was down 0.42% by 9:53 PM ET (2:53 AM GMT), while the was up 0.21%. It was shown that the rose 20.9% over the previous year, and grew 19.5% annually to $94.46 million in December.

Hong Kong’s fell 0.83%

Japan’s slid 1.87%. South Korea’s fell 1.42%, with the hiking its interest rate to 1.25% as it handed down its policy decision earlier in the day.

The Australian rate fell to 0.98%.

Lael brainard stated at the hearing before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee to her nomination for Fed vice-chair that Fed officials could increase rates as soon as March 2022, in an effort to lower inflation.

Patrick Harker of Fed Bank of Philadelphia supports a March liftoff as well as three or four interest rates increases in 2022. His Chicago counterpart Charles Evan sees a similar number of increases in 2022 but added that he could not judge the likelihood of the first hike taking place in two months’ time.

John Williams, President of the New York Fed will address us later that day.

Investors may be tempted to buy value stocks if interest rates rise, as these are more cyclical and provide near-term cash flow.

“We are in a position where much that has been positive for equities is maybe moving to neutral or negative, and while there are still few alternatives, it makes the equity market ripe for more fluctuations over the next few months as we see how the data shake out and how the Fed reacts,” Alpine Woods Capital Investors portfolio manager Sarah Hunt told Bloomberg.

Earnings might also play a role, with Big Tech’s valuation gap likely to close as earnings-per-share growth continues to be slower than the fourth quarter according to Gina Martin Adams (Bloom Intelligence chief equity strategist).

On the data front, Thursdays’ U.S. producer price index (PPI) grew 9.7% and 0.2% in December, while the core PPI grew 0.5% and 8.3% . This week, there were 230,000 more.

Additional data including and will be available later in the day. Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:), and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:) will also report earnings.

Meanwhile, investors also digested the news that the U.S. Supreme Court blocked a rule that would require 80 million workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or face periodic tests, a key component of President Joe Biden’s vaccination push.