Tokyo — Asian stocks drifted without clear direction on Monday after Wall Street’s sluggish performance late last week, while the dollar hovered near nine-month highs as fresh comments from a Federal Reserve official boosted bets of a rate hike by year-end. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan inched up 0.1%. South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.5%. Australian stocks lost 0.6%, hurt by a decline in energy shares. The volatile Shanghai market rose 1.2%, adding to Friday’s gains when it advanced on the strength of infrastructure shares. Japan’s Nikkei treaded water and last stood little changed. "There are few investors who want to chase the market higher until they see more news from overseas, especially those regarding a US rate hike," said Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo. On Friday on Wall Street, the S&P 500 and the Dow were little changed and the Nasdaq advanced as a record day for Microsoft and earnings from McDonald’s helped of...
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