Stock market today: Asian shares are mostly lower ahead of key US inflation report

Shares have fallen in most Asian markets ahead of a key U.S. inflation report due Friday. Benchmarks dipped than 1% in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney. Oil prices and U.S. futures also declined. On Wednesday, the S&P 500 index edged up 0.2% and most of its component stocks fell. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up less than 0.1%. The markets’ big focus this week is on a U.S. government inflation report due Friday. The personal consumption expenditures index, or PCE, is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, and analysts said investors were in a wait-and-see posture after recent mixed data.