Asian stocks struggled Thursday in the wake of a slump on Wall Street after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen rattled bank shares and the Federal Reserve pushed back against bets for interest rate cuts this year. Benchmark indexes fell in Japan, South Korea and Australia while a gauge of US-listed Chinese companies fell earlier. Weakness in the dollar may help some assets in Asia, particularly in emerging markets.

• Japan’s Topix fell 1%
• South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.7%
• Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 0.9%
• Hang Seng Index futures rose 0.8%

Wall Street gyrated to end sharply lower on Wednesday after the U.S. Federal Reserve delivered a widely expected 25 basis point policy hike, while hinting that it was on the verge of pausing future increases in view of recent turmoil in the financial sector.

• Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.63%
• S&P 500 lost 1.65%
• Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.6%

The dollar was under pressure near seven-week lows on Thursday as U.S. bond yields fell sharply after the Federal Reserve sounded close to calling time on interest rate hikes.

• Euro rose 0.2% to $1.0873
• Japanese yen rose 0.2% to 131.17 per dollar
• Offshore yuan was little changed at 6.8581 per dollar
• Australian dollar rose 0.2% to $0.6698

Oil prices fe...