Asian markets ended mostly higher, today, on reassurances from the US Federal Reserve that a spike in inflation was temporary. So Japan's Nikkei-225 index climbed 2.3 per cent; China's Shanghai Composite index advanced 1.8 per cent; Hong Kong's Hang Seng index added 1.1 per cent and South Korea's Kospi index rose 1 per cent.

But Singapore's Straits Times index declined 2.2 per cent, after the city-state's imposition of the strictest COVID-19 curbs since last year stoked worries of a potential unravelling of its nascent recovery.
 
In Europe, London's FTSE-100 had 0.7 per cent; France's CAC-40 had climbed 0.6 per cent and Germany's DAX had gained 0.5 per cent, in intra-day trade.