Oil up, Japan stocks down on US concerns

HONG KONG: Growing fears that global economic turmoil is seeping into the United States kept pressure on the dollar on Friday—boosting oil but hitting Japanese stocks—as investors bet the Federal Reserve will hold off hiking interest rates this year.

After a tumultuous start to the year fuelled by a slowdown from Asia to South America, the focus now turns to the US, the world’s biggest economy and key driver of world growth.