World  Shares Mixed Monday             05/23 05:20

   World shares were mixed in cautious trading Monday after Wall Street dipped 
once again to the edge of a bear market.

   (AP) -- World shares were mixed in cautious trading Monday after Wall Street 
dipped once again to the edge of a bear market.

   Benchmarks rose in Frankfurt, London and Tokyo and fell in Paris and Hong 
Kong. U.S. futures and oil prices rose.

   Investors were awaiting minutes from the latest policy setting meeting of 
the Federal Reserve and updates on consumer prices, due later this week.

   On Friday the S&P 500 dipped more than 20% below its peak set early this 
year before buying late in the day gave it a tiny gain. It finished 18.7% below 
its record. That capped a seventh straight losing week, the longest since 2001, 
when the dot-com bubble was deflating.

   Inflation and rising interest rates, the war in Ukraine, and China's slowing 
economy are all punishing stocks and raising fears about a possible U.S. 
recession.

   Germany's DAX gained 0.5% to 14,050.17 and the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.2% to 
6,271.49. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.6% to 7,437.36. The futures for the S&P 500 
and the Dow industrials were both 0.4% higher.

   In Asian trading, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 1% to 27,001.52.

   Visiting Japan, President Joe Biden launched a fresh U.S. initiative on 
economic cooperation and trade. Called the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, the 
White House said it will help the United States and Asian economies work more 
closely on issues including supply chains, digital trade, clean energy, worker 
protections and anticorruption efforts.

   Details remained to be negotiated, making it unclear how the framework might 
help U.S. workers and businesses while also serving the interests of partner 
countries.

   South Korea's Kospi climbed 0.3% to 2,647.38.

   Australia's S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.1% higher to 7,148.90 after Australia's 
center-left opposition party on Saturday toppled the conservative government 
that had held power for almost a decade.

   Anthony Albanese was sworn in as prime minister after his Labor party 
clinched its first electoral win since 2007. Labor has promised more financial 
assistance and a robust social safety net as Australia grapples with the 
highest inflation since 2001 and soaring housing prices.

   But analysts said the policy stance of the newly elected administration was 
not significantly different from the incumbent government and major changes 
were not expected.

   "Although it is possible that Labor will represent a slightly more fiscally 
supportive government than their predecessors, we don't see many implications 
for financial markets from this election result," ING Economics economists said 
in a commentary.

   Hong Kong's Hang Seng index lost 1.2% to 20,470.06 while the Shanghai 
Composite index was nearly unchanged at 3,146.86.

   Hong Kong-traded shares in food delivery company Meituan lost 3.1% while 
e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding gave up 3.4%.

   Many tech stocks, seen as some of the most vulnerable to rising interest 
rates, have already fallen much more than 20% this year. That includes a 37.2% 
tumble for Tesla and a 69.1% nosedive for Netflix.

   It's a sharp turnaround from the powerful run Wall Street enjoyed after 
emerging from its last bear market in early 2020, at the start of the pandemic.

   With inflation at its highest level in four decades, the Fed has switched 
from keeping interest rates super-low to support markets and the economy and is 
raising rates and making other moves to tamp down inflation. The worry is it 
might go too far or too quickly.

   Goldman Sachs economists recently put the probability of a U.S. recession in 
the next two years at 35%.

   Inflation has been painfully high for months. But the market's worries swung 
higher after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent prices spiraling further at 
grocery stores and gasoline pumps, because the region is a major source of 
energy and grains.

   In other trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil added 52 cents to $110.80 per 
barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained 39 
cents to $110.28 on Friday.

   Brent crude, used as the basis for pricing for international trading, 
advanced 65 cents to $113.20 per barrel.

   The U.S. dollar slipped to 127.56 Japanese yen from 127.87 yen late Friday. 
The euro rose to $1.0676 from $1.0564.