Asian asset owners react to Fed bond sale plans

The US Federal Reserve’s rate hike on Tuesday came as no surprise, but the announcement that it will start shrinking its $4.5 trillion balance sheet as early as this year has put insurers and pension funds on alert in Asia. The Fed will slowly increase its asset sales to $50 billion a month one year after its starts its normalisation programme, wrote Mark Haefele, global chief investment officer at UBS Wealth Management, in a note. Such moves could add to upward pressure on yields…